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"Coal can't be a slur because you can use it as a resource" Maybe it's just me, but that's precisely what makes it a slur. To me at least, the implication is that black people are a resource to be consumed with no other thought or consideration.
People have used the word tar to describe black people too and tar has always been super useful....in ship building. So yeah this author is a complete dumbass.
I’m gonna throw this out there my mom is or was (idk if she’s alive the shelf life of meth head nazis isn’t long) and I’ve heard a lot of slurs towards black people but never coal. I’m not saying the optics of it are good even removing the whole it’s potentially a racial slur. Coal is dirty and smells like crap. I think she might of just been a little too over educated and thought it was profound.
@@FatBoy42069 i get you-for my part i grew up with a bunch of racist shitheads too and i have in fact heard it. the author is definitely too *undereducated* to have written this thoughtfully and responsibly.
OMG, I remember this. The author said she wrote this book because she had curly hair as a child and one time someone mistook her for a black child and shouted at her from a car and made her sad. So she...understands? Lord have mercy.
That reminds me of a former best friend of mine, who got called "Jessica from Africa" for her curly hair (her name wasn't even Jessica), but with the difference being that she was half black (though she was pretty pale and nobody really knew that she wasn't entirely white), her dad was black and mom white. But that's just middle schoolers who needed a reason to pick on a girl they mostly disliked.
Even on a book when the entire premise is "what if white people faced racism?" the white people get a kinda not so bad nickname and the black people get a really offensive one.
Thoughts from 40 minutes in: It's weird how, despite this being meant to be a perspective flip where white people are persecuted, Eden acts exactly like white racists in our world do. Getting furiously angry at black people touching her? Snarling racial slurs? Thinking of black people as 'Them'? Being terrified that a 'mob' of black people will kill her, even though she has no real reason to think that? This is hardly a strange new world, it's literally how racists in our world act.
Also, as a racism role reversal, this whole book does not feel like it was written from the perspective of an oppressed minority. As a black person, while racism is very real, I’m not terrified of every white person I see or refer to them as “them”. Even when a white person is being a racist asshole, I get more annoyed than anything, although I do get scared if they are in a position to harm me. To black people, interacting with white people is just another part of reality, even when we’re oppressed. Even memoirs from slaves treat the absolute horrors they faced as “just another miserable day” because when you are used to certain mistreatment it becomes a part of your reality. Eden somehow has a job as a lab assistant despite being a literal slave, but in real life, slaves were given menial jobs like cooking, farming and cleaning. Slaves could not get higher positions because they were unable to be educated, since becoming smarter would allow them to understand how badly they’d been treated. All of the oppression Eden faces is either completely superficial or arbitrary based on her actions, not her existence. It’s weird, there’s so many interesting byproducts of how racism affects a person’s day to day life, but there was no research or thought put into this story.
Well-put. I'd also like to add that Eden's problem about being """"oppressed"""" is also something actual white racists use as an excuse, except in real life they're being oppressed by other races... [checks notes] Existing.
This is a problem I have with lots of fiction works who tackle this theme: despite everything being fictional (or even straight fantasy), the whole racial stuff works basically like the real world, with little to no explanation why this happen. Some notable exceptions to this rule I can mention is "Shingekin no Kyojin" and "Valkyria Chronicles", where the works flesh out an in-world explanation of why exist racism against some minority groups, and "Mass Effect", where the game gives a solid explanation about all races that exist and, based on that explanation, they tell you about some racial stereotypes these races have. For example, once you know about their history and culture, you understand why some people think Asari are sl*ts, or why people are glad the Krogans are going extinct.
"Conceivably, if the book had not reached the African-American community of readers, if such a category still exists, perhaps there might be some backlash."- Victoria Foyt yeah, I think it's safe to say that she's actually just really fucking racist
assuming that's an exact quote, the use of the word "still," really confuses me here... like, is she implying that nowadays "categories" of readers are never defined by race ("I don't see color" etc etc), or does she actually mean that she thinks black people used to read, but don't read anymore (or at least have been reading less and less)?? It would be easier to interpret as plainly racist if it just said "if such a category exists," but this way, it's also just extremely confusing while still definitely being something nobody should have ever said. I wonder if she thinks like "ever since all this rap music came around and got popular, the black youths have been reading books less and less", or something insane and racist like that... that's the only racist sentiment that could motivate the use of "still" that I can think of. I obviously don't have the best perspective to interpret this, though.
Her defense of "coal is useful" isn't that we can burn black people for warmth, her intent seems to be "I'm not racist, see: I can say nice things about [them]" But you know who *else* had nice things to say about black people? Actual literal slave owners. "Oh, they're such sturdy, hard workers!" Being able to say nice things about a group of people doesn't mean you don't *also* think horrible things about what they are or what they should be allowed to do.
Yup I remember when reading old southern books they would "praise" black people by saying "they work hard like oxes" Like, ah yes black people, great at getting whipped and doing farmwork
“we can burn black people for warmth” K so that brings us to another thing wrong with this nickname. Coal has no beauty on its own but can be used and destroyed by people to create beauty. Which implies that black ppl have no beauty or value on their own but can be used - in a way that destroys them - to create something valuable. Which is exactly what slave owners think about slaves.
I felt sort of relieved when the protagonist turned into a cat-person with white fur, because for a moment I though the book would end with the main couple solving racism forever by just turning all humans into yaguar-people
@@santiagoacosta3372 I don’t pay hundreds of dollars for a pearl either. But you can make anything sound worse than intended if you elaborate on one point and not the other
@@dirkjehovah4731 *sigh* "It really hurts to cook, but it is just too delicious not to do." _, I say before chopping off my second leg as described by the book._
I am brazillian and my grandma is japanese. She told me that once she dated a chinese guy, but he didn't told her that. When she discovered the truth, they immediately stopped seeing each other, because he could be beaten up by her brothers. There is heavy prejudice between east asian folks, especially among old people, so it is really weird to have them together as the same ethnicity.
@@TheTegastrue but like japan literally brutalized the people of china in a way comparable in a non hyperbolic sense to the holocaust. Arguably worse, but I don't like to make tragedies into pissing contests over who suffered more because both were horrific events, just trying to explain how truly monstrous the events that took place were
When my grandmother was young, a woman who dated a German might get her head shaved as part of public shaming, but that would be unheard of today. This is set in the future, Chinese and Japanese people don't just naturally dislike each other more with age, its a generational thing.
22:08 you know what would be more efficient at protecting skin from the sun? Clothes. Fabric. Something humanity figured out ages ago. Also the whole "black people don't need protection from the sun" is an awful misconception! Black people are also prone to skin cancer! And omg James is still on the first page and I'm already ranting in the comments, that's gonna be a long one
Black people can also get sunburn if they haven't been in the sun for long. Because natural UV protection consists of two parts: 1. increased pigmentation and 2. a thickening of the skin. The pigmentation may be there, but if the thickening is not, you can still get sunburn.
Yeah melanin is not 100% protection. Especially if UV increased dramatically, like due to ozone hole or something like it, then everyone would suffer from it
I'm not surprised by the cat people plotline, using the word "mate" in any sense near human people in your book is a red flag it is about to be some omegaverse werewolf sex shit
Hey werewolf sex fiction things are surprisingly equalizing, mpreg, some do commentary on omegas and them trying to not be valid as pop babies out. I mean its gets a bad rap,like any romance genre it has everything the good even progressive and bad. I mean omegaverse usually has some commentary how f..ed up that would be , and not great?! In some way, not that.
@@marocat4749 They usually start with "commentary" but always end with omegas not being able to live without a dick shit. It may be fun to read, but gets a bad rep for a reason.
@@serpenking Sorry i think some are actually , with omegaverse stuff there is selfawareness that , Maybe the author did see sone fanfics and said "i can do that better" we know she is into furry stuff at least superficial. And sorry to , i didnt mean, i just meant its worse than the worst abo stuff which is, Why why do you putsmut a smut genre already in the worst way, why.
"this b**** has two functioning brain cells and they're both fighting for third place." That, sir, is a strong contender for the highest quality roast I have ever come across!
@@Lunk42 What I can translate: "And furry fantasies. I know furries for the most part. It's [referring to the race stuff?] not inherent, and a lot is not [...not racist?], but furry smut exists, and is better."
And this hellish mix created a pretty racist book. Honestly, it´s fascinating. This should be studied and shown as an example of never what to do. There isn't any situation where this book should be written. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaah!!!
Okay, an Aztec god appearing out of nowhere was the last damn thing I was expecting from these books. Also, uh... Aztec deity saying that this one white woman is the only one who can save everyone via their vaguely defined ethnic spirituality? This is, like, the pinnacle of White Saviour narratives.
There's nothing so white saviour as a white person writting about an Axtec god, a culture conquered by white people, saying that a white person is gonna save everyone. Not event he spaniards will be so bold to write that
'Book has several issues: racism, meandering plot points, animal sex, America-centric races.' Wait wait, one of these things is not like the other James. Also, has the author never heard of just normal sunblock? Why is the only way to fend off UV to immediately default to black face and furry experimentation?
Or what about protective clothing? Or the healing plant that was apparently growing everywhere? Or the fact that they live underground and therefore don't need protection from the sun?
Okay I think I could explain the black face at least as a potentially interesting concept Just what if in this universe, sunblock as a industry developed more mutually with the makeup industry And for more stronger son block blend it would have to be a lot thicker, but people like their skin showing. Therefore it would at least theoretically make sense for the sunblock industry to developed a more mutually beneficial relationship with the makeup industry. Here's the thing Because the Dominique cultural zeitgeist is black and it don't crack, well simply put makeup in the street is it good to put all that much effort into white skin you get three different shadings and that's about it and they're all shit. (God the amount of pain and annoyance the POC have to deal with when it comes to the makeup industry is insane always having to find a better tone and blend because the main manufacturers don't do shit.) However because it doesn't work as well the darker skin option is the preferable for protecting against the Sun. I mean it's an idea. And yes I know it's technically justifying black face. But at the very least with this idea you could make a historical parallel.
@@anarchomando7707 make it some baseline halfway bronze color thats partly transluscent. That way white people look "tanned" and it wouldnt be as noticeable in people with darker tones. And it would also be some switcheroo on colorism and how people in this society strive to look not necesarily black, but darker-skinned instead of white and how darker skin is seen as a beauty ideal and preferable
The beastman part felt so out of place and the story went so hilariously off the rails lmao. The author should've just wrote regular monster romance tbh. Maybe instead of the race stuff, she could've had humans being oppressed by furries lol. That way she could've still had her self-indulgent furry romance and the racism themes without being unintentionally racist.
Nah thats the nice idea. The black guy love interest can be depicted as true werepanther without any human descend. And the main protagonist (the girl) can be werepanther too that for sone reason born from human being and thinkings if she is real human
@@prasetyodwikuncorojati2434 different types of furries, ranking off of domestication; protagonist thinks she’s a housecat but she’s actually a black-footed cat or something.
Uh, Aztecs usually didn't sacrifice women, especially not THEIR OWN women; typical sacrifice for them were warriors from other tribes captured in battle. And this was a big deal! Aztec wars were outright focused on capturing rather than killing enemies, so that they could be sacrificed. I've even heard that when they weren't at war, they stoked rebellions among the subjugated peoples, just so they could crush them and sacrifice the captors. None of this would be needed if they could just. Sacrifice one of their own women. Now, the Inca and other South American cultures did sacrifice their own children, but only as a last resort (they preferred llamas and guinea pigs), and usually by drugging them and leaving them in the mountains to freeze to death.
I heard of this before, the concept of men wanted to be sacrificed because that was "a macho thing to do" is amazing, people were proud of being food for the gods
@@santiagoacosta3372 Oh, don't get it twisted, the defeated warriors DID NOT want to be sacrificed. But what say did they have on the matter? They were defeated. I suspect Aztecs sacrificed their enemies in part because they didn't want to do that to their own people (unlike the Incan child sacrifices, where it being Incan children was the whole point; the gods needed to see how desperate they are to end some bad situation, like famine or whatever).
Somebody has probably already said this but the white girl being named Eden (garden of Eden anyone) and the black woman being named Peach (reminded me of Nina Simone's four women, a song about black subjugation and stereotypes - the final woman is named Peaches) was an immediate red flag.
So, fun fact about albinism: it tends to be most common in people of sub-Saharan African descent. So I'm just imagining this well-off black couple giving birth to a child with albinism, looking at each other and being like "Well it was our one chance and we blew it. Such a shame we have to send them off to live a horrible life on the bottom of the social ladder." Like, I can see the idea of it being a social stigma, similar to how leprosy was treated in the past. But that's something that really needs to be explored. I find it really difficult to believe that some politician or influential businessman or whatever in the history of this society has either never had an albino kid or did and just accepted their kid's fate. Moreover, what are the social implications for the parents? After all, people are only allowed one kid. Would it destroy their careers? Would they lose their status? Face discrimination and ostracisation from people they call their friends? Like, Bramford has an albino kid but also a private hovercraft and personal staff so clearly it doesn't have much impact, but I feel like it should. Also the racial castes don't make sense to me from a worldbuilding perspective either. I know there's the radiation and resource shortage but that doesn't justify it. Like, they live underground and have their "coating", which doesn't seem to be particularly resource-heavy (because if it was, it'd be illegal to use it unnecessarily due to the resource shortage). So then why would people care about your skintone over the "value" you bring to society? Wouldn't farmers and tradesmen be more highly viewed than artists and mathematicians because their contributions are both tangible and somewhat immediate? Why would anyone care about what's under the "coating" when there's food on the table and a roof over their head? Why do I feel like I've put more thought into this then the author?
There's this CNN guy with vitiligo that at times was fully white, and his facial structure happens to make him look like just a white guy, not a black guy colored wrong. He uses makeup. That sorta thing would be interesting
Also, if they have genetic engineering advanced enough to make human animal hybrids a real possibility, couldn't they just test for the genes for albinism before people hook up? And also, couldn't they just use sperm donors instead of this convoluted "mate" system?
I'm less than halfway in but, perhaps completely by coincidence, there seem to be a lot of Mormon themes. Pearls-->Pearl of Great Price; racism against black people while not knowing what to say about other races; people needing to pair off at a young age; drugs being bad; retroactively ascribing identities to dead people...
It makes me wonder if this author is a Mormon. I heard from a few places that one of the tenants of Mormonism is "spreading the gospel" so to speak. There are a lot of Mormons in high ranking positions in some of the bigger publishing houses, and sometimes they greenlight authors just because they are Mormon and literally nothing else. It's how Stephanie Meyers was able to break into the business, despite her writing being less than stellar. Granted, I'm not sure if that is actually the case nor does that completely apply here since this is self published, but it would explain a lot if it is.
@@z0mbabe mormonism is really weird. Joseph smiths life alone is weird, and terrible, but extremely weird. There is a naked mormon podcast that, makes a podcast deciphering a lot. And they have magic underwear and baptize dead, not only against their will, but hitler wtf, several times. And yeah incredibly rassist. There is the bit where they came to educate the great natives of anerica and jesus?! Jesus being the brother of satan is the least weird.
If the sunlight is so strong that clothes (think desert robes) aren't enough, all these people should be wearing snow goggles to not go blind within the week.
He was associated with it (patron deity) he is the deity of male prostitutes. His female counterpart (Xochiquetzal, who author may have meant) is the deity of female prostitutes
It's so funny. By trying to swap the roles and engage her readers to think critically about current/past race issues (? not sure if that actually was her intention, but I can't think of a better one) she actually repeated and spelled out several Nazi/white supremacy talking points. It's so painful to listen to this when you've heard conspiracy theorist whine about a "white genocide" and "the blacks taking over" before. As you've mentioned, I doubt it was her intention but it is very much the result she's created.
@@ZerogunRivale Also says a lot that the only way she thought white people would recognise that racism was bad was if it was happening to a white character. Because there's NO WAY we'd empathise with a black main character, right?!?!
There's a YA book called 'Across the Universe' and at one point one of the characters who was born on the very homogenous spaceship mentions that wise teachings of Hitler, who knew that differences in skin tone/beliefs/cultures was the source of all conflict. He does learn otherwise when he meets his popsicle girlfriend from the past (who is a different phenotype). And because the author wasn't an idiot, was used to demonstrate the governing body's use of Nazi propaganda to control the population. In a meta way, the book falls on the side of 'diversity is good' because if accidental nazi boy didn't fall for popsicle girlfriend's 'unusual' looks, everyone would have died. Probably still has a lot of issues, but what 2011 book doesn't?
Moral of the story (not the book but this situation): the best way to encourage critical thought about race issues is to portray the problems from a significantly more alien perspective. That is to say, portraying human on nonhuman or nonhuman on nonhuman racism (or xenophobia I guess).
For me what really shows how the autor doesn't understand "race" is the fact the she lumped "latino" as one classification. Like, imagine if she put "canadian" as a sub race of white people, it's this level of wrong. I'm glad James adressed this bc a lot of usamericans seems to have a hard time understanding this really simple fact.
She equals the rather subjective concept of "race" (just ask a WWII- nazi, a neo-nazi and an american census bureau what categorises as "white" and you will get 3 different answers) with objective truths like "amount of melanin in your skin cells". Also a critic's favourite talking point; americentrism.
@@gregjayonnaise8314 *A billion types of latines. A hispanic person is someone from a spanish speaking country, and not only Latin America has countries that speak languages other than Spanish but Hispanic also include people from Spain (who aren't from latam) Kindly, a brazilian
Yes. "Latino" is not even a race. If anything, there are varying degrees of "mestizo", which means literally "mixed race". And "Latino" is not a "culture" either. Two arbitrary Latin American countries are as different as two arbitrary African countries (There is no such thing as "African culture" either. Which one of the hundreds of cultures of Africa is the "African culture"??) Apart from a few religious ones that are nearly universal nowadays, we do not share the same holidays, we do not share the same cuisine, we do not share the same ethnic groups or cultures... We only share the same language (and only for the last ~200 years), a bit of the same religion (same as before), roughly a similar history, and even that is debatable... For all I care, race is a worthless and arbitrary way to divide humans, and race obsession is an exclusively American phenomenon. I went to school with kids with blonde hair and green eyes and with kids who were as black as it gets, and all of us considered ourselves as Mexican as pozole, and nothing else. There is no point in trying to divide non-Americans in arbitrary groups based on surface appearance.
The dumbest part is you could SO EASILY avoide at least the Pearl/Coal thing (I'm speaking about purely incompetet writing). Make it about onyx or obsidian like you said, but also... Pearls are immensly precious and rare. Why not something worthless and brittle like chalk (that would even work with Coal which at least is useful)? Why not zircone, which is knows as the 'fake cheapo gem', or quartz, which is the most commonplace type of gemstone? WHERE WAS THE EDITORS?!
When I was like 13 years old and doing cringey worldbuilding for a story I literally came up with a society that still had the same "race" categories of the real world except they were named after mineral materials. The African descent-analogous people were called obsidians, East Asians were pyrites, Arabs were carnelians, western Europeans were zircons, etc etc. It astounds me to think a grown woman published a story doing almost that exact same thing but somehow WORSE. I'm shook.......
the idea that furries are spiritually balanced is wild to me, all the furries I know are either athetists or have experience with multiple cults and have told me I could start one completely unprompted
Describing people with food metaphors not only has a weird fetishy background, it's also just....not good writing. I can't tell you how many dumb books I've read where EVERY dark-eyed character has "chocolate eyes," and EVERY pretty girl has "skin like peaches and cream." They're overused to death.
people really need to start utilizing other kinds of metaphors 😞 if your character’s got dark eyes, compare them to the night sky! ginger hair? the sunset. dark skin? i cant think of anything at the moment but i would much rather stick to the good old “warm brown” or “deep brown” or simply just “dark skin” rather than compare someone to chocolate. focus on the undertones, too!
It's worth noting that around the mid-twentieth century, segregation affected TV to the point where intermingling of races was considered highly scandalous. "I Love Lucy" was revolutionary for the time as Lucille Ball had to heavily insist that her Latino husband costar with her as the production team was resistant initially, because he was Latino. Betty White responded to complaints about a black performer on one of her shows, by giving him more screentime on said shows. Non-whites in general did have a tough time getting on TV, especially black people. Figured I'd make a correction on one of your points for education purposes.
@@lostinthemassesyeah, and when they were first allowed to be in tv the women had to be extremely light skinned and the men extremely dark skinned or it wasn't happening.
I love this book so much. It's literally just the same copy-paste authoritarian dystopia, but this time it's racist. It's so bad it's kind of mesmerizing.
Ever since Sarah Z mentioned this in a video almost a year ago, my interest in this book has been super high. Not enough to, ya know, actually read the book, but I’m glad you’re finally reviewing it
When I read the title I thought to myself “oh, is it like a YA generic dystopia but some characters are racially insensitive unidimensional portrayal of minorities?” *James reads the summary* oh no *James shows the book trailer* OH… NO… I thought “True Allegiance” was the gold standard for “racist XXI Century genre fiction novel” but I swallow my words. And Ben was intentionally portraying black people in that manner, this lady thought she was being progressive! It’s somehow even worse!
Besides being incredibly racist, this book was also clearly written with one hand. C'mon, you know I'm right about the author being into interracial stuff.
Speaking as a furry, you generally don't describe animal-human hybrids like this author has if you're not at least a little into it yourself. And frankly, I don't want this author anywhere near my fandom.
@@LexYeen one story i had to read for a college english class had the main character (some sort of monster person) fail to distinguish between hunger and lust, and well... it's kinda awkward to run across that when you're acutely aware that vore is a fetish some people have
I thought it was going to be like there were two female protagonists (one black, one white) and the book was about them working together or against each other or something.
And what happens if someone winds up with twins? Or more? Would all but one baby be killed, or do the parents get a free pass because it was clearly unintentional?
@@NoOne-is2yrbc shes got some sick tendencies she needed to play out. Weirdly, racist people fucking love all different kinds of bad shit, all kinds of philias...
Hi, I'm the host of the Black and Red Book Review podcast. I read white nationalist "literature". It's genuinely surprising to me that one of those goblins didn't write this.
I mean it seems like the author believes mostly the same repugnant stuff. Given how many influential white supremacists texts are like "Author's in prison for domestic terrorism" or "Author actively organizes & councils hate groups," -- yeah Save The Pearls clears a certain bar by comparison, but that bar is so low there's dirt on top of it.
I was reading someone else's chapter-by-chapter summary and stopped at the point where we are informed that Eden doesn't dare point out that Peach is ten minutes late coming back from lunch because a white person is not allowed to make that kind of criticism of a black person. It really sounds like the author was bringing a petty personal argument from the real world into her dystopian novel.
Yeah, sounds like she got a bit too into policing her coworkers at one point and got told to stop being such a goober. Only to then associate it with what she presumes is...black privilege?
I think she was just going for lazy basic role reversal, like definitely could be her bringing some shit into the story but I think she thinks shes ms white savior, showing bad whites how awful they sound.
There is a stereotype that Black people are always late and operate on “CP Time”. It must be strictly an American thing, though, because neither I, nor any of the other Black Canadians I know had ever heard of it before the 2016 presidential election lead-up.
There’s a point we’re ignorance begins to become malice. If you can’t be bothered to research on the people and topic your writing about, that’s a purposeful choice to be ignorant. Its different from not having the opportunity to be exposed to this information. This book has very clear stereotypes about black people (ie the men being beastly and the women being curvy), a race essentialist view point, a world in which black people are rulers, a main character who hates black people’s day calls them slurs, black face and minstrelsy, having superhuman qualities etc. and I’m only halfway through the video. Edit: Also forgot why is her boyfriend named Jamal? that’s a weird, very surface level choice of a name for black person.
absolutely correct. at some point things like this become malicious, but i'd be willing to bet the author (cant even remember her name) isn't just ignorant. I mean, Jamal calls her "my little bunny", referencing (i assume) SNOW BUNNIES?! LIKE WHITE WOMEN WHO DELIBERATELY FETISHISE BLACK MEN?! i think this author is less ignorant than her blog posts would imply about at least some aspects of this, and i think its disingenuous to paint her as 'just a stupid lady who didn't understand what she was writing about'
Foyt’s inability to acknowledge that she fucked up really bothered me. Not just bc it was unpleasant and cringy, but also because it helped set a tone for ppl were going to take this discussion on going forward. Nothing constructive was done, books in this sort of line of thinking are still being written, and criticisms of these books are being attacked by ppl who refuse to acknowledge that even good, well meaning people can propagate harmful ideologies without intending to.
The fact she even tried to *defend* herself is fucked. Like, writers should never respond to their book reviews! Sure, respond to the controversy, but don't respond to the actual reviews being written/filmed, that just sets a precedence that reviewing books is not a safe action to do. Just look at the Matt Walsh bullshit
@@BooksandBuns she was trying to acknowledge the racism in the book, but she beyond fucked up. I’m not sure how much she contributed to the current culture of backlash against reviews tho, because she was only responding to that and not the reviews saying it was a shitty book, IIRC. For my money, that can be laid at the foot of the current reactionary tendencies of hyper conservatism, and the fan fiction to YA writer pipeline bc my god, fic writers and conservatives these days have shrouded themselves in the same paper thin skin.
@@65firered I know it’s mean, but I honestly think, regardless of her intentions, that she’s a stupid, racist woman. I don’t think she understands and she makes me very cross.
@@misskate3815 you mean white cishet women fic writers, right? Cause I know many trans men fic writers, myself included, who would never stoop this low. It's the privileged fic writers who have the same thin skin as conservatives, & often hold conservative values, & not the majority of fic writers who are actually marginalised themselves. For every white cishet woman author who's turned her YA romance fic into a novel, there are 20 marginalised writers who will never get the same sort of publicity as bullshit like After or 50 Shades
So as for the constant oxy use I do have an answer to that. I took that shit for ten years during cancer treatment (and it’s synthetically derived so they don’t need poppies) but after the initial adjustment it has little to no mind altering effect. You’d either have to take little breaks and periodically detox or take more and more to get even a little bit high. The author could not have picked a worse drug to make everyone high and happy long-term.
yeah, when I heard what he said about not being able to get anything done while high all the time, I knew that James has (most likely) never had the experience of being physically dependent on opioids (and in my case, addicted to abusing them), unlike me. In fact, some people can't get anything done *unless* they're constantly on oxycodone, or whatever opioid or substance they use. How unlucky he is not to have this knowledge (lol). For real tho, after using opioids constantly for weeks or months, you simply feel normal when you take your ordinary/average dose of the opioid, and often are simply constantly taking it to stave off the absolutely terrible and uncomfortable feelings of anxiety, increased physical pain (aching spine, an inability to find any comfortable position, worsening of any existing pain), nausea, hopelessness, and the awful sensation of being torturously hot and cold at the same time (simultaneously shivering and sweating), among others. Oh wait, I guess it's actually a very good thing (and not unlucky) that James has (likely) not experienced this... On the point of the author picking a bad drug, I kind of disagree. I don't think the reason was necessarily to keep everyone high and happy all the time. If it were even possible, wouldn't keeping everyone *actually* intoxicated to the point of euphoria on any drug interfere with their work performance in a similar way to what James was saying (any sedative/opioid/dissociative/cannabinoid at least, and stimulants have their own set of issues; they're not exactly ideal for keeping a population calm and complacent for one, and there's also issues with them accelerating the development of latent/dormant disorders which cause psychosis, especially if they're given to literally everyone in the population, which is an issue cannabinoids may unfortunately share). I think that the *actual* reason is probably about controlling them, and making them dependent upon maintaining good standing with the authorities to avoid going through what might possibly be the most physically and mentally painful experience of their lives (opioid withdrawal), which they can constantly feel lurking around the corner when they start to have cravings and are warned to take some more. How can you easily rebel against a government that has that kind of control over you? Ultimately, I think the main point is that the people's work performance is not degraded, but they are physically dependent upon continued cooperation with the authorities, with a very physically painful/awful consequence for noncompliance, and the substance is one that is unlikely to spur people into action or cause unpredictable psychological reactions (whereas stimulants could possibly cause both of these effects, I think). Perhaps the government even gives out bonus doses of oxycodone to people as a reward for achievements/exemplary compliance occasionally, so that the model citizens can add it on top of their daily dose to feel a little bit of mu-opioid receptor mediated bliss for a little while. (Another point against stimulants is that their withdrawal symptoms are less physically awful in my opinion, so I don't think the threat would be as scary if it was coke/amphetamine/meth.) Also, if they did just only give people a big dose of oxy/opioids every single evening to get high on, then the people would (after a while) start going into withdrawal when they wake up without any opioids to get them through the workday. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, and if you think I'm missing another substance that could work much better, but at the moment, I don't think it's the worst substance for the task. (P.S. There are of course benzodiazepines, but the withdrawal from them is so hard on the brain that it can cause clusters of seizures that can be deadly if someone suddenly quits completely after using them for a long time, i.e. quitting cold turkey while dependent, so that seems like it would be a bit too dangerous, because I don't think they want people to start having seizures and dying just because the government has supply chain issues. That's not good for social stability. Also these drugs cause more behavioral disinhibition and potential aggression/sloppiness than opioids do, in my opinion. People high on heroin slump over in bed, perhaps watching something. People high on benzos, which act very similarly to alcohol, go out and drive cars and steal shit and sometimes fight people. Just my experience.)
Also, I dearly hope that you ended up beating the cancer fully, and it's amazing that you fought it for ten years, I can't imagine what you went through, it's humbling to hear. I hope you're in the best health possible, and are doing well. Have a good one!
@@ByzantineDarkwraith long term opioid use can also cause seizures as well, and not just during withdrawal😬 now I could be mistaken, but I thought that he’d said the author laid out that the reasoning for the oxy was a happy/complacent working populace? At a certain point I think your best bet is to just give everyone a government mandated six pack of beer at the end of the workday😂
@@maddiedoesntkno do you have any sources for that? I know a lot of fellow addicts and haven't heard it (except for as a potential symptom in overdose due to lack of oxygen to parts of the brain being able to cause convulsions), it'd be interesting to read about. Either way, it's certainly much much less common of an effect of opioid withdrawal than it is for benzodiazepene/alcohol (and other sedatives which work on the GABA receptor) withdrawals. (Oh, and there's also tramadol which is an opioid and can cause seizures surprisingly easily if you take a bit too high of a recreational dose, but that's not due to tramadol's opioid effects. tramadol actually acts on a bunch of sites in the brain, various receptors and transporters, and I believe it's tramadol's action as a rapid Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor which causes it to lower the seizure threshold)
I have theory about sudden existence of "thousands years old Aztec's building"- author did so little research that she assumed that they' ve always been there, just because they existed before first contact with Europeans.
This feels like the authors OC interracial shapeshifter monster smut fic that she cut the sex scenes out of and published. In the YA section. Because God has left us.
I can't wait for Elon the Martian Lord to come out. It will be a depressing tale about idiots dying on Mars. All of the characters are jackasses so it will be more of a comedy.
My favourite example of "racism/classism is actually stupid and meaningless" in fiction using non-humans is from an old sovjet movie "kin-dza-dza". It's a satirical comedy where two everyday shmocks are teleported by accident to a faraway deser planet and need to figure out a way home. There it turns out there is two different "classes" of people and whichever happens to be the ruling class does whatever it likes to the "lower" class. And they all look the same. Like, they don't have any external differentiations. The *only* way of getting any differnece is by holding this remote in the direction of the person and if the light turns green they're one class, if it's red they're the other. So, naturally, the audience inserts I mean main characters ask "what the fuck is that thing even about? This is stupid." and the aline characters (who look like humans btw. Don't expect anything high budget) are just like "what do you mean it doesn't make sense? That's how it is. Shut up and put on your nose-bell." There is more to the movie as well. And every passing year I feel it's becoming more relevant. So yeah. If you've read this far, stranger, look it up. The two part movie is on youtube (w english subtitles of course).
"I don't know anyone who calls their children son or daughter as a pet name" my dad calls me Daughter-Bot and I call him the All Father, but we're a family of nerds, and I'm 33 years old 😅 I love your longform video essays about trash books. Keep up the good work!
Ah science. You know what also blocks solar radiation? Clouds. Glass windows. Air layers. You really don't need to live underground to protect yourself... or if you do, at that point the planet has bigger problems.
one actually really interesting thing is that dogs actually can be, and often are racist! if you don't socialize them with different races they can turn racist. or if someone does something bad to them, the dog can associate that colour skin with the trauma. my mums dogs as a kid in south africa would always growl and bark at black people. at the time, she thought they just "knew they were bad".
My dog was socialized well yet had two problem groups of people black men and Hispanic men except one. Ironic given his favorite people where the black women from the Jehovah's witnesses any men they brought with them had to stay in the car. Best compromise was if you're in his problem groups were to give him a treat enter and let him have his space. We tried everything
My dog would consistently bark at Asian ladies. Only from far away. She was a corgi so often people would come and greet her closer up and she would have no problem. I also don’t think her eyesight was great since it was only if they were across the street.
Come for the skewering of a YA novel series infamous for its racial insensitivity, stay for the revelation that one of the most notorious dictators in recent history wrote a romance novel. Good deal if you ask me.
The state-mandated use of oxy, the racial castes, and the native tribe outside their authoritarian society makes me feel like the author read Brave New World and completely misinterpreted it
I haven't finished the video yet but I can't help but feel much less charitable to the author of this book. Between that potential 14 words reference, and the fact that the "adopting Emily Dickinson as an ancestor" thing reminds me a lot of the way in which white supremacists claim a connection to unrelated "great white people" to strengthen their narrative of the white race. edit: The author of this series would probably keel over of she learned that a lot of people considered Latine are also black
she's that person who thinks they're progressive and "see everyone the same" but really just doesn't want to deal with their biases and recognise the ways they do perpetuate racism. like with this book
I remember a similar plot line to this one. It was in the Turner Diaries. The Neo-Nazi book that literally coined the term 'Day of Ropes'. God help us.
It's very reminiscent of a Birth of a Nation and the Turner Diaries and it's so apparent that this HAD to be a dogwhistle. There's no way a well-intentioned person wrote a "black people mass assault white women" erotica where the black characters are named coal and cotton, and they all rule the world simply because they're "beastly and savage". Like legitimately insane, I would at least expect that they would cover the stereotypes up with a "fictional race" like Stephanie Meyers and the wolves/shapeshifters "just happening to be indigenous". And it's further proof that writers need to be historically aware of harmful stereotypes before they put things on paper that they cannot erase. Far too many writers will say racist and offensive things about us and file it under "well it's B-grade erotica!". I have read several stories that play into black stereotypes for "fetish fuel" and then try and cover it up with "well it's fiction and not at all reminiscent of my true feelings" but at some point there's a direct throughline between racist violence and media either villanizing or oversexualizing us. People have to know these things to avoid them or else it spreads like wildfire and they take it as fact. (See: white fans of asian media calling all asian people "real life anime characters" or people randomly calling Koreans "Kpop". White people consistently bringing up BBC even when unprompted and erring on sexual harassment, etc.) Like the defense that this is a "spicy romance" is not at all a fair defense because Birth of a Nation was a horror movie. The Turner Diaries is a dystopic romance by definition. It is literally in the same genre of one of the most racist fiction novels to date, and nearly holds up next to it.
As someone has never heard of this book before, I think I'm glad that I hadn't lol EDIT: why dont they all just mass cultivate the magic healing herb and live above ground? Is it ever explained? Seems like it would be an easier and less weird option than turning into furries? Someone who has read the book, I need answers
You could have the father being a twistvillain and wanting furry supremacy for reasons and thats why?! It would not exploring the rest of the world, but she being indoctrinated in a furry supremany cult by her dad and her conflict could explain, maybe the dad kept that from the cave?! Sounds a way more interesting set up. That with the background of opression could be , its complicated, her dads bad, the cave is. She shares the plant with the cave people against the opressive authorities control, and gets other furry people there, she steals and destroys his research that creates furres to have hippie furry group?!
I guess no one from the underground society ever found out about the plant because they never went to the surface level long enough to notice? Even though it seems like a very prolific native plant...and there are def some people that do go to the surface...maybe the ruling class just didn't want the "pearls" to be able to be on the surface without issue through the help of the plants? Otherwise, the distinction between races/classes would become completely unnecessary, so the government suppressed knowledge/research of the plants in an attempt to stay in power. That's really the only explanation I can think of. Honestly, I wish the politics of the plants was discussed more. Would have been way more interesting than the constant fetishization of the indigenous peoples on the surface. Could have been a whole plot where the "coals," "pearls," and even the "cottons" come together after learning about this cure that the government/rulers hid from them just so they could live in comfort while everyone else struggles, is expected to drop their life goals to reproduce once, and is constantly drugged with oxys so they don't notice/question their poor conditions.
It's a shame a video about such a violently terrible book is also the source of an absolutely fantastic insult... "This b*tch has 2 functioning braincells and they're both fighting for third place" incredible
As I watch this I became increasingly confused on why cat people hybrids and Aztec gods overtook this story about a tone deaf ya dystopian story about inverted racism????
The subject of dogs being colorblind is actually false; they cannot perceive the level of color in the spectrum as ours can, but they still perceive colors nonetheless. And it's an awful thing, but some dogs have historically indeed been trained to differentiate the skin color of humans and act differently toward races with a specific color of skin, typically with hostility, and typically trained by white people to be used specifically against black people. A good example would be that it has, and in some cases still happens, in the southern United States. I've seen rural establishments that have signs outside that say that people need to beware of wearing dark-colored clothing or hoods, or exposing their skin if they possess dark skin color, because the owner's dog had been trained to attack those of that description on sight. It's horrific.
In what world is being a pearl ever going to carry a negative connotation? Its so ingrained in our language as a word for a precious thing that you wouldn't be able to flip that and then use it to describe what had been the dominant class for centuries.
Honestly, the difference between Foyt's Aztec religion and real-life Aztec religion could have been fairly easily explained by just saying that some Spaniards sided with these fleeing Aztecs and integrated with them, teaching them things like how to make firearms and metal weapons and armor and how to ride horses and all that, and over the course of generations, these Spaniards' Christianity was syncretized with the Aztec's religion. We see examples of a similar thing happening in real life with the veneration of the Catholic folk saint Santa Muerte ("Holy Death", depicted as a female Grim Reaper), which stems from the belief in and worship of indigenous death deities. However, in this case, the reverse would be true, with Aztec belief and theology setting the precedent while Christian theology and mythology are simply made a part of it (though some changes could be bigger than others). There's probably potential in how the apparently real Aztec gods would work with or around this modified theology, but I'm too tired to go into it. (On the matter of these hypothetical Spanish defectors, it could lead to a more technologically-advanced Aztec group who speak a fusion of Nahuatl and Spanish, on top of maybe even having some Aztec-aesthetic clockpunk machinery or something. Sounds fun.) Then again, I'm no expert on any of what I just spouted off, these are just ideas I came up with off the top of my head while eating dinner, so take everything I just said with a metric ton of salt.
protip: you can replace english letters with their cyrillic equivalents and it`s just as hard for a machine to read it as if you replaced those letters with non-text symbols, but way easier for a human to read
Ī bəţ ŕåňďøm đıãčříťïçš, §ým🅱️0Ł$, àńď šůçh čøůľď w⁰ŕķ āş wėłľ. +, ppľ c*n fîll in __s vįâ ķàhňťe×ț, s* ťjăť nnâý hěļp. I bet random diacritics, symbols, and such could work as well. Plus, people can fill in blanks via context, so that may help.
44:00 my personal favorite real world version of this would be that japanese people in South Africa were considered white and other east asian people were considered black basically because the SA government wanted Japanese goods. Edit: and also they were to lazy to keep coming up with racial categories
My question is how does the ruling class have a racial slur? There’s a reason we don’t really have effective racial slurs for white people, rich people, straight people, cis people, etc. That’s just not really how slurs work
All groups and all demographics have slurs against them. If one race can have a slur against it, then all races can. If one income level can have a slur, then all of them can. Slurs don't stop being slurs just because you like to say them or because you personally don't find them as offensive as other slurs.
@@ComradeMaryFromMars Slurs don't stop being slurs just because you don't think they're as bad as other slurs. Unless your definition of slur can only apply to race or some other category, one income level not having a slur means none of them can.
Omfg. I'm sorry. But when you were reading the summary, the second you said her secret lover's name was Jamal i fucking lost it. Like not to be that guy, but i feel like that's the most default stereotypical name a white person would make for a black person lmao.
It is my dude. Like it's in the top 5 of stereotypical names for a black person. It almost as bad as Tyrone. I almost surprised that she didn't use that name. (I am a black girl/woman btw) And soon as she used Jamal, I knew he was a bad guy because I felt it in my bones.
This book is absolutely fucking batshit, but I have to admit the nursery rhyme makes sense. Nursery rhymes are fucking dark. "It's raining, it's pouring," "Doctor Foster," "Mary Mary," "Jack and Jill," even "Humpty Dumpty." They're all about people dying horrible deaths or having miscarriages. Children are vicious fuckers, man. I wouldn't put that shit past them.
@@ReturnToSenderz So bleak. I remember being the only kid in nursery who was mortified by it. I got in pretty big trouble when I made the other kids cry by explaining that the baby in the song fucking dies.
You know, the idea of people who belong to an oppressed group being mandated to wear a literal mask to physically blend in with the group in authority as a metaphor for the way oppressed groups have been either legally required or socially pressured to fit in with their oppressors' society throughout history COULD have been interesting - in a way better book than this
A former friend of mine who was white, blond-haired, blue-eyed, the whole she-bang, once posed to me almost this exact idea two years ago. I don't know if she realised the implications of it either, especially considering I'm half middle eastern, but safe to say that even though I'd never heard of this book before I was not surprised someone had made a "poor white people, being eradicated by the nasty black people" YA dystopia novel before.
a former friend who I thought was genuinely joking when she said something racist pitched a similar idea, and it was so mind-blowningly stupid I’m also half middle-eastern and that’s when I tapped out of the friendship because she wasn’t joking at all
In aztec cosmology, the world ended 4 times because of petty fights amongst gods. Also, if there is a god you don't want to exists it's Huitzilopochtli. He demands lots and lots of blood. They'll be better of with Quetzalcoatl but with someone that thinks Ecuador is next to México, I don't expect too much.
To be fair every single of these fellas likes blood. Lots of blood, Quetzalcoatl might have been more tame, but it could also be a part of colonizers trying to tie him to Jesus, sadly our knowledge of Nahua religious practices is filtered through christians who recorded most of what we know
A world where people are forced to have children could be an interesting concept. You could have an asexual or gay protagonist and the story could be a metaphor for societal expectations being forced on people. It could be a position on abortion. I don't know if you said this, but didn't you say that people are only allowed to have one child in this world? Then why also force them to have children? To keep the generation cycle going very fast? That would sort of explain the 18 year rule, but not why they are forced to have kids
The fact that this story could have instead been about the species of oysters that create pearls the mineral going extinct and the leads having to save them with that name but NO WE HAD TO GET RACISM THE BOOK
Yes, I've been waiting for a long review like this one. Dude your reviews are the perfect background videos for when I'm farming exp points in rpgs or repeating hunts in monster hunter.
I love how you broke down how unreliable and unscientific our ideas about racial groups are at around the 45 minute mark. So many people don't seem to understand this concept and I have tried to explain it to people before but I have difficulty finding the right words. The way you worded it really makes sense.
One thing I feel should be called out is Grouping Latinos as a race. Being Latino is an ethnicity. Latinos are Black, white brown, and and of all colors. I believe is the same with Asians
Latino isn't an ethnicity really. It's just a classifier for people from Latinate-speaking countries. There are still races and ethnicities within those countries. Saying that it is one would be like saying everyone from the US and Canada constitute a single race.
Not in the same way. Asian covers the continent, so indians and Chinese people are both Asian. But it's not used in the same way that Latino is, where a white person is Latino too.
You say Hunger Games, but the only book series that came to my mind while listening to this is Twilight. I think Foyt has a general disposition towards other races, which is complicated by her either having Autassassinophilia or some other philia that draws her to those whom she looks down upon. Just replace blac- I mean *coals* with vampires/werewolves and it's spookily close when you remember how creepy Meyer was.
there might be a thousand other bad books out there, but you thrashing this particular one for two hours and a half has instantly made my day brighter, kudos 💕
my God. Everytime. EVERYTIEM i think "dear god that's a lot of bad worldbuilding its on this whole book" and then you exclaim how WE'RE NOT EVEN PAST THE FIRST 20 PAGES
@@Mecharnie_Dobbs Fried chicken is not itself inherently racist. However, racists made eating cheap food like fried chicken and watermelon a racist stereotype _literally generations ago._
the fact that this takes place on earth, in a supposed future, rather than an alt history earth or just a different world entirely, kinda makes it seem like a portent of "what would happen if black people were given power"
If you want to read either of these books, the PDF scans are located here: drive.google.com/file/d/1SZbclNeE9kAm2BRfM474NRybopd3YddA/view?usp=sharing
2nd book: drive.google.com/file/d/1IgQDlxfudOlZSn4cfXNWCq81c0vfzwzX/view?usp=sharing
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Bold of you to assume that anyone would wanna read them. XD
@@crowravencorvenrow How else do you believe its real 😀
The sponsor link appears to be broken :(
@@marocat4749 That's my secret, Cat. I don't want to.
The fact that the PDF scan is signed by the author and the little message for the fan was "Embrace your inner beauty" is killing me
"Coal can't be a slur because you can use it as a resource"
Maybe it's just me, but that's precisely what makes it a slur. To me at least, the implication is that black people are a resource to be consumed with no other thought or consideration.
Lets also keep in mind slaves were considered resources. So saying you can use something as a resource doesnt suddenly make it not racist
People have used the word tar to describe black people too and tar has always been super useful....in ship building. So yeah this author is a complete dumbass.
I’m gonna throw this out there my mom is or was (idk if she’s alive the shelf life of meth head nazis isn’t long) and I’ve heard a lot of slurs towards black people but never coal.
I’m not saying the optics of it are good even removing the whole it’s potentially a racial slur. Coal is dirty and smells like crap. I think she might of just been a little too over educated and thought it was profound.
@@FatBoy42069 i get you-for my part i grew up with a bunch of racist shitheads too and i have in fact heard it. the author is definitely too *undereducated* to have written this thoughtfully and responsibly.
@FatBoy42069 it is a slur they even call white women who date black men coal burners
OMG, I remember this. The author said she wrote this book because she had curly hair as a child and one time someone mistook her for a black child and shouted at her from a car and made her sad. So she...understands? Lord have mercy.
PLEASE that's so funny 😭😭
Bruh 💀
That reminds me of a former best friend of mine, who got called "Jessica from Africa" for her curly hair (her name wasn't even Jessica), but with the difference being that she was half black (though she was pretty pale and nobody really knew that she wasn't entirely white), her dad was black and mom white. But that's just middle schoolers who needed a reason to pick on a girl they mostly disliked.
She said she got stung on her lip by a bee and a boy called her the N-word, which she cites as the inspiration for writing this book.
@@lilykujaqueen4037this made me laugh so hysterically, good lord.
Even on a book when the entire premise is "what if white people faced racism?" the white people get a kinda not so bad nickname and the black people get a really offensive one.
Yeah, if being white was supposed to be so bad, why not something like pigeon poop.
Call em the Sperms
@@orionh5535 Or maybe something brittle and not valuable like chalk or somethin’?
I think the terms should've been "blancos" like this one series.
@@GOFFBITZH666 Talc and obsidian instead of pearl and coal sounds a lot better, IMO
Thoughts from 40 minutes in: It's weird how, despite this being meant to be a perspective flip where white people are persecuted, Eden acts exactly like white racists in our world do. Getting furiously angry at black people touching her? Snarling racial slurs? Thinking of black people as 'Them'? Being terrified that a 'mob' of black people will kill her, even though she has no real reason to think that? This is hardly a strange new world, it's literally how racists in our world act.
This book feels more like what a racist person thinks the world is like rather than a fleshed out fictional society
Also, as a racism role reversal, this whole book does not feel like it was written from the perspective of an oppressed minority. As a black person, while racism is very real, I’m not terrified of every white person I see or refer to them as “them”. Even when a white person is being a racist asshole, I get more annoyed than anything, although I do get scared if they are in a position to harm me. To black people, interacting with white people is just another part of reality, even when we’re oppressed. Even memoirs from slaves treat the absolute horrors they faced as “just another miserable day” because when you are used to certain mistreatment it becomes a part of your reality.
Eden somehow has a job as a lab assistant despite being a literal slave, but in real life, slaves were given menial jobs like cooking, farming and cleaning. Slaves could not get higher positions because they were unable to be educated, since becoming smarter would allow them to understand how badly they’d been treated. All of the oppression Eden faces is either completely superficial or arbitrary based on her actions, not her existence. It’s weird, there’s so many interesting byproducts of how racism affects a person’s day to day life, but there was no research or thought put into this story.
Well-put. I'd also like to add that Eden's problem about being """"oppressed"""" is also something actual white racists use as an excuse, except in real life they're being oppressed by other races... [checks notes] Existing.
This is a problem I have with lots of fiction works who tackle this theme: despite everything being fictional (or even straight fantasy), the whole racial stuff works basically like the real world, with little to no explanation why this happen. Some notable exceptions to this rule I can mention is "Shingekin no Kyojin" and "Valkyria Chronicles", where the works flesh out an in-world explanation of why exist racism against some minority groups, and "Mass Effect", where the game gives a solid explanation about all races that exist and, based on that explanation, they tell you about some racial stereotypes these races have. For example, once you know about their history and culture, you understand why some people think Asari are sl*ts, or why people are glad the Krogans are going extinct.
@gregjayonnaise8314 Actually trying to research and comprehend how racism affects people takes too much empathy for this author I guess.
"Conceivably, if the book had not reached the African-American community of readers, if such a category still exists, perhaps there might be some backlash."- Victoria Foyt
yeah, I think it's safe to say that she's actually just really fucking racist
IF SUCH A CATEGORY STILL EXISTS
???!!!
Black people apparently don't read?? First I've heard of this 🤔
What does she even mean by that...
assuming that's an exact quote, the use of the word "still," really confuses me here... like, is she implying that nowadays "categories" of readers are never defined by race ("I don't see color" etc etc), or does she actually mean that she thinks black people used to read, but don't read anymore (or at least have been reading less and less)?? It would be easier to interpret as plainly racist if it just said "if such a category exists," but this way, it's also just extremely confusing while still definitely being something nobody should have ever said. I wonder if she thinks like "ever since all this rap music came around and got popular, the black youths have been reading books less and less", or something insane and racist like that... that's the only racist sentiment that could motivate the use of "still" that I can think of. I obviously don't have the best perspective to interpret this, though.
Her defense of "coal is useful" isn't that we can burn black people for warmth, her intent seems to be "I'm not racist, see: I can say nice things about [them]"
But you know who *else* had nice things to say about black people? Actual literal slave owners. "Oh, they're such sturdy, hard workers!"
Being able to say nice things about a group of people doesn't mean you don't *also* think horrible things about what they are or what they should be allowed to do.
"Hey, women are great at doing dishes!"
yeah as soon as i heard 'cotton' being used to define people with albinism i full body cringed like. jesus fuck.
Yup I remember when reading old southern books they would "praise" black people by saying "they work hard like oxes"
Like, ah yes black people, great at getting whipped and doing farmwork
“we can burn black people for warmth” K so that brings us to another thing wrong with this nickname. Coal has no beauty on its own but can be used and destroyed by people to create beauty. Which implies that black ppl have no beauty or value on their own but can be used - in a way that destroys them - to create something valuable. Which is exactly what slave owners think about slaves.
@@oskarileikos “Peasants are great at toiling in the fields.”
Me: Come on, James. It can't be THAT racist--
James: *reads the summary*
Me:
I'm still baffled by the fact that they thought that 'coals' was a good idea
And cotton, because cotton has no connetations, ever. With race, which isnt real ethicity isnt race.
Fuck man the cover and title hits like a baseball bat.
My thoughts EXACTLY
When I heard the summary I legitimately felt shocked
The main and only theme of Save the Pearls is that we should all become catgirls.
Just not racist catgirls.
Yeah please not rassist and awful ones.
But else, i respect that theme .
damn, that’s were nick fuentes got his worldview!
So we should all become furries?
I felt sort of relieved when the protagonist turned into a cat-person with white fur, because for a moment I though the book would end with the main couple solving racism forever by just turning all humans into yaguar-people
Pearls are: Pretty, weird, special and cool
Coal is: coal
The author wasn't even trying to seem not racist
Coal: was instrumental in the industrial revolution which shaped modern society
Pearl: is a rock
@@cameronrobertson9800 you don't pay hundreds of dollars for a single piece of coal, do you?
@@santiagoacosta3372 I don’t pay hundreds of dollars for a pearl either. But you can make anything sound worse than intended if you elaborate on one point and not the other
@@cameronrobertson9800 ok but coal is still a slur
Black pearls exist, and are even more valuable than white pearls.
"Hey black people. you are useful 'cause we can burn you for energy!" gotta be the weirdest phrase i've heard today. And you got competition.
Reminds me of that cookbook that accidentally printed “chopped black people” as an ingredient instead of chopped black pepper
@@dirkjehovah4731 lol
@@dirkjehovah4731 Oh nooooo hahahaha
@@dirkjehovah4731 *sigh* "It really hurts to cook, but it is just too delicious not to do." _, I say before chopping off my second leg as described by the book._
@@SennaHawx yummy 😋
I am brazillian and my grandma is japanese. She told me that once she dated a chinese guy, but he didn't told her that. When she discovered the truth, they immediately stopped seeing each other, because he could be beaten up by her brothers. There is heavy prejudice between east asian folks, especially among old people, so it is really weird to have them together as the same ethnicity.
There's some very VERY uncomfortable history between Japan and China in particular.
@@LaydiNite
Tbh there's uncomfortable recent history between Japan and ever other east Asian country lmao
@@TheTegastrue but like japan literally brutalized the people of china in a way comparable in a non hyperbolic sense to the holocaust. Arguably worse, but I don't like to make tragedies into pissing contests over who suffered more because both were horrific events, just trying to explain how truly monstrous the events that took place were
When my grandmother was young, a woman who dated a German might get her head shaved as part of public shaming, but that would be unheard of today. This is set in the future, Chinese and Japanese people don't just naturally dislike each other more with age, its a generational thing.
@@TheTegas Japan was really playing war crimes simulater
The fact that that “There’s a romance novel written by Saddam Hussein” is not the craziest thing said in this video astounds me.
“Iraq and Kuwait, the forbidden union” - By Saddam Hussein
Haven't gotten to this part, but James should definitely review it
@@actpossum That’s why it’s brought up assuming it hasn’t taken you 12 hours to finish this 2 hour video
@@MagicalGirlFia it has actually, im halfway through,
The Behind the Bastards podcast first episode is devoted to his self-published novels. x)
22:08 you know what would be more efficient at protecting skin from the sun? Clothes. Fabric. Something humanity figured out ages ago.
Also the whole "black people don't need protection from the sun" is an awful misconception! Black people are also prone to skin cancer!
And omg James is still on the first page and I'm already ranting in the comments, that's gonna be a long one
It's sooo gross how much the author had to twist stuff to make her racist oppression fantasy fit.
Black people can also get sunburn if they haven't been in the sun for long.
Because natural UV protection consists of two parts: 1. increased pigmentation and 2. a thickening of the skin.
The pigmentation may be there, but if the thickening is not, you can still get sunburn.
Hell thats why eastern people wear more breathing white, thats why that trend exists.
Yeah melanin is not 100% protection. Especially if UV increased dramatically, like due to ozone hole or something like it, then everyone would suffer from it
Also protection from sun actually doesn't have to be colored, like sunscreen. It is meant to absorb UV, it doesn't need to absorb visible light
I'm not surprised by the cat people plotline, using the word "mate" in any sense near human people in your book is a red flag it is about to be some omegaverse werewolf sex shit
Hey werewolf sex fiction things are surprisingly equalizing, mpreg, some do commentary on omegas and them trying to not be valid as pop babies out.
I mean its gets a bad rap,like any romance genre it has everything the good even progressive and bad.
I mean omegaverse usually has some commentary how f..ed up that would be , and not great?! In some way, not that.
@@marocat4749 They usually start with "commentary" but always end with omegas not being able to live without a dick shit. It may be fun to read, but gets a bad rep for a reason.
@@marocat4749 never implied i wasn't into the weird omegaverse werewolf sex stuff 😌
@@serpenking Sorry i think some are actually , with omegaverse stuff there is selfawareness that ,
Maybe the author did see sone fanfics and said "i can do that better" we know she is into furry stuff at least superficial.
And sorry to , i didnt mean, i just meant its worse than the worst abo stuff which is,
Why why do you putsmut a smut genre already in the worst way, why.
@@serpenking 🐺
"this b**** has two functioning brain cells and they're both fighting for third place." That, sir, is a strong contender for the highest quality roast I have ever come across!
It is good, I"ll thieve it.
It reads as if the author was trying to reconcile her white guilt with her black fetish 😐
Agree. It's giving me " delicate white woman wanting a big black dude" vibes if you know what I mean.
Add furry fantasies. I k ow furries for the most part, itsnot inherentoy and a lot is not, but furry smut exists, and is better.
@@marocat4749 Can you repeat that in English?
@@Lunk42 What I can translate: "And furry fantasies. I know furries for the most part. It's [referring to the race stuff?] not inherent, and a lot is not [...not racist?], but furry smut exists, and is better."
And this hellish mix created a pretty racist book. Honestly, it´s fascinating. This should be studied and shown as an example of never what to do. There isn't any situation where this book should be written. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaah!!!
Okay, an Aztec god appearing out of nowhere was the last damn thing I was expecting from these books.
Also, uh... Aztec deity saying that this one white woman is the only one who can save everyone via their vaguely defined ethnic spirituality? This is, like, the pinnacle of White Saviour narratives.
Amazing just fucking amazing.
There's nothing so white saviour as a white person writting about an Axtec god, a culture conquered by white people, saying that a white person is gonna save everyone. Not event he spaniards will be so bold to write that
'Book has several issues: racism, meandering plot points, animal sex, America-centric races.' Wait wait, one of these things is not like the other James.
Also, has the author never heard of just normal sunblock? Why is the only way to fend off UV to immediately default to black face and furry experimentation?
Or what about protective clothing? Or the healing plant that was apparently growing everywhere? Or the fact that they live underground and therefore don't need protection from the sun?
@@PassTheMarmalade1957 and the fact that, by living underground, their skin would lighten due to lack of sun exposure 😭😭
Okay I think I could explain the black face at least as a potentially interesting concept
Just what if in this universe, sunblock as a industry developed more mutually with the makeup industry
And for more stronger son block blend it would have to be a lot thicker, but people like their skin showing.
Therefore it would at least theoretically make sense for the sunblock industry to developed a more mutually beneficial relationship with the makeup industry. Here's the thing
Because the Dominique cultural zeitgeist is black and it don't crack, well simply put makeup in the street is it good to put all that much effort into white skin you get three different shadings and that's about it and they're all shit.
(God the amount of pain and annoyance the POC have to deal with when it comes to the makeup industry is insane always having to find a better tone and blend because the main manufacturers don't do shit.)
However because it doesn't work as well the darker skin option is the preferable for protecting against the Sun.
I mean it's an idea. And yes I know it's technically justifying black face. But at the very least with this idea you could make a historical parallel.
@@anarchomando7707 make it some baseline halfway bronze color thats partly transluscent. That way white people look "tanned" and it wouldnt be as noticeable in people with darker tones. And it would also be some switcheroo on colorism and how people in this society strive to look not necesarily black, but darker-skinned instead of white and how darker skin is seen as a beauty ideal and preferable
The beastman part felt so out of place and the story went so hilariously off the rails lmao. The author should've just wrote regular monster romance tbh.
Maybe instead of the race stuff, she could've had humans being oppressed by furries lol. That way she could've still had her self-indulgent furry romance and the racism themes without being unintentionally racist.
I'd rather read a weird furry supremacist fanfic than this tbh.
@@saladcaesar7716 Same here, at least that would be worth laughing at and drinking over.
So... Reverse BNA?
Nah thats the nice idea. The black guy love interest can be depicted as true werepanther without any human descend. And the main protagonist (the girl) can be werepanther too that for sone reason born from human being and thinkings if she is real human
@@prasetyodwikuncorojati2434 different types of furries, ranking off of domestication; protagonist thinks she’s a housecat but she’s actually a black-footed cat or something.
Uh, Aztecs usually didn't sacrifice women, especially not THEIR OWN women; typical sacrifice for them were warriors from other tribes captured in battle. And this was a big deal! Aztec wars were outright focused on capturing rather than killing enemies, so that they could be sacrificed. I've even heard that when they weren't at war, they stoked rebellions among the subjugated peoples, just so they could crush them and sacrifice the captors. None of this would be needed if they could just. Sacrifice one of their own women. Now, the Inca and other South American cultures did sacrifice their own children, but only as a last resort (they preferred llamas and guinea pigs), and usually by drugging them and leaving them in the mountains to freeze to death.
I heard of this before, the concept of men wanted to be sacrificed because that was "a macho thing to do" is amazing, people were proud of being food for the gods
@@santiagoacosta3372 Oh, don't get it twisted, the defeated warriors DID NOT want to be sacrificed. But what say did they have on the matter? They were defeated. I suspect Aztecs sacrificed their enemies in part because they didn't want to do that to their own people (unlike the Incan child sacrifices, where it being Incan children was the whole point; the gods needed to see how desperate they are to end some bad situation, like famine or whatever).
You know, all of this start to make much more sense when you realize the author has a race fetish.
Yeah, her self-insert is literally just like, "I NEED a strong, financially-secure Black man to BREED me!"
absolutely. Jamal calls Eden "my little bunny" which i'm pretty sure is a reference to snow bunnies (white women who fetishise black men)
Somebody has probably already said this but the white girl being named Eden (garden of Eden anyone) and the black woman being named Peach (reminded me of Nina Simone's four women, a song about black subjugation and stereotypes - the final woman is named Peaches) was an immediate red flag.
"Peeeaaach, your so cool-"
Ok I'll stop lol 😂.
So, fun fact about albinism: it tends to be most common in people of sub-Saharan African descent. So I'm just imagining this well-off black couple giving birth to a child with albinism, looking at each other and being like "Well it was our one chance and we blew it. Such a shame we have to send them off to live a horrible life on the bottom of the social ladder."
Like, I can see the idea of it being a social stigma, similar to how leprosy was treated in the past. But that's something that really needs to be explored. I find it really difficult to believe that some politician or influential businessman or whatever in the history of this society has either never had an albino kid or did and just accepted their kid's fate.
Moreover, what are the social implications for the parents? After all, people are only allowed one kid. Would it destroy their careers? Would they lose their status? Face discrimination and ostracisation from people they call their friends? Like, Bramford has an albino kid but also a private hovercraft and personal staff so clearly it doesn't have much impact, but I feel like it should.
Also the racial castes don't make sense to me from a worldbuilding perspective either. I know there's the radiation and resource shortage but that doesn't justify it. Like, they live underground and have their "coating", which doesn't seem to be particularly resource-heavy (because if it was, it'd be illegal to use it unnecessarily due to the resource shortage). So then why would people care about your skintone over the "value" you bring to society? Wouldn't farmers and tradesmen be more highly viewed than artists and mathematicians because their contributions are both tangible and somewhat immediate? Why would anyone care about what's under the "coating" when there's food on the table and a roof over their head?
Why do I feel like I've put more thought into this then the author?
Because you have.
There's this CNN guy with vitiligo that at times was fully white, and his facial structure happens to make him look like just a white guy, not a black guy colored wrong. He uses makeup. That sorta thing would be interesting
Those brave farmers facing the danger of the sun. They are true heroes.
To be fair, people found reasons to be extremely racist and antisemitic during the Black Plague. Not justifying this stupid book but yknow 😵💫
Also, if they have genetic engineering advanced enough to make human animal hybrids a real possibility, couldn't they just test for the genes for albinism before people hook up?
And also, couldn't they just use sperm donors instead of this convoluted "mate" system?
Tullos: Don't even get me started on the animal sex.
Me: THE WHAT???!!
Literally my reaction, too.
Where do I sign up?!
@@rayelgatubelo🤨🤨
@@Asmanidoesnotexist2 I'm literally a furry and a jaguar fursona to boot.
@@rayelgatubelo
I pray that you dont own pets
I'm less than halfway in but, perhaps completely by coincidence, there seem to be a lot of Mormon themes. Pearls-->Pearl of Great Price; racism against black people while not knowing what to say about other races; people needing to pair off at a young age; drugs being bad; retroactively ascribing identities to dead people...
I kbow I'm gonna regret asking this, but what the fuck is a "pearl of great price"
It makes me wonder if this author is a Mormon. I heard from a few places that one of the tenants of Mormonism is "spreading the gospel" so to speak. There are a lot of Mormons in high ranking positions in some of the bigger publishing houses, and sometimes they greenlight authors just because they are Mormon and literally nothing else. It's how Stephanie Meyers was able to break into the business, despite her writing being less than stellar. Granted, I'm not sure if that is actually the case nor does that completely apply here since this is self published, but it would explain a lot if it is.
@@z0mbabe part of the canon of Mormon holy literature
It makes awful much sense if she is. Not making it better or a sole reason, dammit meyer and her yikes in twilight arent that bad,
@@z0mbabe mormonism is really weird. Joseph smiths life alone is weird, and terrible, but extremely weird.
There is a naked mormon podcast that, makes a podcast deciphering a lot.
And they have magic underwear and baptize dead, not only against their will, but hitler wtf, several times.
And yeah incredibly rassist. There is the bit where they came to educate the great natives of anerica and jesus?!
Jesus being the brother of satan is the least weird.
If the sunlight is so strong that clothes (think desert robes) aren't enough, all these people should be wearing snow goggles to not go blind within the week.
True XD
The barbed penis line almost made me drop the cookies I was working on. I just stood there, broken for a second.
w h a t
i guess i'm not at that point in the video yet.... what the fuck?
@@jimjimson6208 1:20:32 is the timestamp.
Some animals only ovulate when there is sexual violence (spiky dick)
Oh, helllll naw!
So, fun fact, Xochipilli was a masculine deity, not a feminine one and he was also deity of homosexuality.
A racist book is also homophobic? Imagine my shock
He was associated with it (patron deity) he is the deity of male prostitutes. His female counterpart (Xochiquetzal, who author may have meant) is the deity of female prostitutes
Wait this goes into Aztec culture?
Perhaps the author mistook him for the Toltec deity of Xochitl? I would not be surprised
It's so funny. By trying to swap the roles and engage her readers to think critically about current/past race issues (? not sure if that actually was her intention, but I can't think of a better one) she actually repeated and spelled out several Nazi/white supremacy talking points. It's so painful to listen to this when you've heard conspiracy theorist whine about a "white genocide" and "the blacks taking over" before. As you've mentioned, I doubt it was her intention but it is very much the result she's created.
@@ZerogunRivale Also says a lot that the only way she thought white people would recognise that racism was bad was if it was happening to a white character. Because there's NO WAY we'd empathise with a black main character, right?!?!
There's a YA book called 'Across the Universe' and at one point one of the characters who was born on the very homogenous spaceship mentions that wise teachings of Hitler, who knew that differences in skin tone/beliefs/cultures was the source of all conflict. He does learn otherwise when he meets his popsicle girlfriend from the past (who is a different phenotype). And because the author wasn't an idiot, was used to demonstrate the governing body's use of Nazi propaganda to control the population. In a meta way, the book falls on the side of 'diversity is good' because if accidental nazi boy didn't fall for popsicle girlfriend's 'unusual' looks, everyone would have died. Probably still has a lot of issues, but what 2011 book doesn't?
Perpetuating the “black men are rapist savages,” stereotype that is the backbone ideology of the KKK, really makes me wonder her intentions.
Moral of the story (not the book but this situation): the best way to encourage critical thought about race issues is to portray the problems from a significantly more alien perspective. That is to say, portraying human on nonhuman or nonhuman on nonhuman racism (or xenophobia I guess).
@@ZerogunRivale what's an sjw?
My favorite part of James Tullos videos is when he says "Its Tullin' time" and tulls all over the bad guys.
This is getting out of Morbs here.
uh, what the tull???
He really is one of the book reviewers of all time.
You know he had to Tull it to 'em.
Same
The author should have focused on the furry stuff and the protagonist turning into a catgirl.
I know that there is an audience for that.
Hey, as a furry, dont push this author to us.
theres furry fanfic thats *way* better than this garbage even if you cut out the racist shit.
I know I'd like it but considering what an atrocious writer Ms. Hoyt is she probably would have still fucked it up.
For me what really shows how the autor doesn't understand "race" is the fact the she lumped "latino" as one classification. Like, imagine if she put "canadian" as a sub race of white people, it's this level of wrong.
I'm glad James adressed this bc a lot of usamericans seems to have a hard time understanding this really simple fact.
Yeah, there’s like a billion types of Hispanic, all of which range in skin tone. And Italian person will have a different background than a Mexican.
South Park Canadians lmao. The difference is, South Park made some really pointed satire
She equals the rather subjective concept of "race" (just ask a WWII- nazi, a neo-nazi and an american census bureau what categorises as "white" and you will get 3 different answers) with objective truths like "amount of melanin in your skin cells". Also a critic's favourite talking point; americentrism.
@@gregjayonnaise8314 *A billion types of latines.
A hispanic person is someone from a spanish speaking country, and not only Latin America has countries that speak languages other than Spanish but Hispanic also include people from Spain (who aren't from latam)
Kindly, a brazilian
Yes. "Latino" is not even a race. If anything, there are varying degrees of "mestizo", which means literally "mixed race".
And "Latino" is not a "culture" either. Two arbitrary Latin American countries are as different as two arbitrary African countries (There is no such thing as "African culture" either. Which one of the hundreds of cultures of Africa is the "African culture"??) Apart from a few religious ones that are nearly universal nowadays, we do not share the same holidays, we do not share the same cuisine, we do not share the same ethnic groups or cultures... We only share the same language (and only for the last ~200 years), a bit of the same religion (same as before), roughly a similar history, and even that is debatable...
For all I care, race is a worthless and arbitrary way to divide humans, and race obsession is an exclusively American phenomenon. I went to school with kids with blonde hair and green eyes and with kids who were as black as it gets, and all of us considered ourselves as Mexican as pozole, and nothing else. There is no point in trying to divide non-Americans in arbitrary groups based on surface appearance.
The dumbest part is you could SO EASILY avoide at least the Pearl/Coal thing (I'm speaking about purely incompetet writing). Make it about onyx or obsidian like you said, but also... Pearls are immensly precious and rare. Why not something worthless and brittle like chalk (that would even work with Coal which at least is useful)? Why not zircone, which is knows as the 'fake cheapo gem', or quartz, which is the most commonplace type of gemstone?
WHERE WAS THE EDITORS?!
It was self published.
imma jump to the conclusion that the author's vocabulary is limited
@@halfway7690 Even self-pubished books go trough editors more often than not, thouh I guess I shouldn't have that much hopes in this case. xD
When I was like 13 years old and doing cringey worldbuilding for a story I literally came up with a society that still had the same "race" categories of the real world except they were named after mineral materials. The African descent-analogous people were called obsidians, East Asians were pyrites, Arabs were carnelians, western Europeans were zircons, etc etc. It astounds me to think a grown woman published a story doing almost that exact same thing but somehow WORSE. I'm shook.......
Vanity press, probably.
Either way, yes. The author cannot into words.
the idea that furries are spiritually balanced is wild to me, all the furries I know are either athetists or have experience with multiple cults and have told me I could start one completely unprompted
There's a lot to unpack in that one comment.
oh my
i think all anyone needs to do to know not one furry on this earth is any kind of balanced is meet one for like, 10 minutes
@@Saibellus Furries make the internet work, of course none of us are quite right in the head.
@@SusanForeman1963 It's all true. All of it.
Describing people with food metaphors not only has a weird fetishy background, it's also just....not good writing. I can't tell you how many dumb books I've read where EVERY dark-eyed character has "chocolate eyes," and EVERY pretty girl has "skin like peaches and cream." They're overused to death.
Eyes like honey, skin like milk, hair like fresh picked strawberries? Sounds like a great breakfast shake to me.
I feel like the only "right" time I can use these metaphors is making the POV main character as a plot twist cannibal
"Skin like peaches and cream" kinda makes me think of a mottled beige-and-literally-white coloration.
people really need to start utilizing other kinds of metaphors 😞 if your character’s got dark eyes, compare them to the night sky! ginger hair? the sunset. dark skin? i cant think of anything at the moment but i would much rather stick to the good old “warm brown” or “deep brown” or simply just “dark skin” rather than compare someone to chocolate. focus on the undertones, too!
Obvious racism bullshit aside, this is a post-apocalyptic setting.
And the main protagonist is called Eden Newman.
Wow.
It's worth noting that around the mid-twentieth century, segregation affected TV to the point where intermingling of races was considered highly scandalous. "I Love Lucy" was revolutionary for the time as Lucille Ball had to heavily insist that her Latino husband costar with her as the production team was resistant initially, because he was Latino. Betty White responded to complaints about a black performer on one of her shows, by giving him more screentime on said shows. Non-whites in general did have a tough time getting on TV, especially black people.
Figured I'd make a correction on one of your points for education purposes.
I have newfound respect for the Lucy cast. That shits ballsy.
Yeah not only were black people not allowed on TV and in movies for a long time, they weren't allowed on the radio either.
Hence why the Kirk-Uhura kiss was so groundbreaking.
@@lostinthemasses lmao how the fuck are they going to tell your race on the RADIO
@@lostinthemassesyeah, and when they were first allowed to be in tv the women had to be extremely light skinned and the men extremely dark skinned or it wasn't happening.
I love this book so much. It's literally just the same copy-paste authoritarian dystopia, but this time it's racist. It's so bad it's kind of mesmerizing.
Ever since Sarah Z mentioned this in a video almost a year ago, my interest in this book has been super high. Not enough to, ya know, actually read the book, but I’m glad you’re finally reviewing it
same!
what video did she mention it in?? I'm so curious, i thought i'd seen them all
@@ByzantineDarkwraith i think the one about dystopian ya novels
I knew the title sounded familiar, thanks for reminding me where I’d heard it before lol
And that is how I knew about the book, while is very surprising if how much I was into ya around the time
When I read the title I thought to myself “oh, is it like a YA generic dystopia but some characters are racially insensitive unidimensional portrayal of minorities?”
*James reads the summary*
oh no
*James shows the book trailer*
OH… NO…
I thought “True Allegiance” was the gold standard for “racist XXI Century genre fiction novel” but I swallow my words. And Ben was intentionally portraying black people in that manner, this lady thought she was being progressive! It’s somehow even worse!
Besides being incredibly racist, this book was also clearly written with one hand.
C'mon, you know I'm right about the author being into interracial stuff.
Speaking as a furry, you generally don't describe animal-human hybrids like this author has if you're not at least a little into it yourself. And frankly, I don't want this author anywhere near my fandom.
Yeah she, its good if she stays away. And unpleasent if her main is any indication.
For some reason, the fascists who hate minorities are also really into them
@@LexYeen one story i had to read for a college english class had the main character (some sort of monster person) fail to distinguish between hunger and lust, and well... it's kinda awkward to run across that when you're acutely aware that vore is a fetish some people have
@@rarebeeph1783 you... had to read that fir college? Do you remember the name?
Oh my god I assumed the cover just had her face weirdly in shadow… 💀
I thought it was going to be like there were two female protagonists (one black, one white) and the book was about them working together or against each other or something.
@@willowdigger617 That would have been really cool! But no, just racism…
I'm sorry if I missed something, but every couple can have only 1 child? So they're intentionally halving their society every generation?
And why the rush to make them mate by 18 when they can only have one baby?
Better question. Why are they worried about mating and reproduction if the population needs to be reduced?
And what happens if someone winds up with twins? Or more? Would all but one baby be killed, or do the parents get a free pass because it was clearly unintentional?
@@NoOne-is2yrbc shes got some sick tendencies she needed to play out. Weirdly, racist people fucking love all different kinds of bad shit, all kinds of philias...
Also REALLY gross that all this sex HAS to happen while they're underage???
Hi, I'm the host of the Black and Red Book Review podcast. I read white nationalist "literature". It's genuinely surprising to me that one of those goblins didn't write this.
I mean it seems like the author believes mostly the same repugnant stuff. Given how many influential white supremacists texts are like "Author's in prison for domestic terrorism" or "Author actively organizes & councils hate groups," -- yeah Save The Pearls clears a certain bar by comparison, but that bar is so low there's dirt on top of it.
Where is this podcast on? I wanna listen to this.
@@jamiekagemori1299right! You are going on a list. Not sure which one, but my comrades in the New World Order will find one.
@@Craig-j2e uh, what? Are these guys like, actually white supremacists too?
I was reading someone else's chapter-by-chapter summary and stopped at the point where we are informed that Eden doesn't dare point out that Peach is ten minutes late coming back from lunch because a white person is not allowed to make that kind of criticism of a black person. It really sounds like the author was bringing a petty personal argument from the real world into her dystopian novel.
Yeah, sounds like she got a bit too into policing her coworkers at one point and got told to stop being such a goober. Only to then associate it with what she presumes is...black privilege?
I think she was just going for lazy basic role reversal, like definitely could be her bringing some shit into the story but I think she thinks shes ms white savior, showing bad whites how awful they sound.
There is a stereotype that Black people are always late and operate on “CP Time”. It must be strictly an American thing, though, because neither I, nor any of the other Black Canadians I know had ever heard of it before the 2016 presidential election lead-up.
There’s a point we’re ignorance begins to become malice. If you can’t be bothered to research on the people and topic your writing about, that’s a purposeful choice to be ignorant. Its different from not having the opportunity to be exposed to this information. This book has very clear stereotypes about black people (ie the men being beastly and the women being curvy), a race essentialist view point, a world in which black people are rulers, a main character who hates black people’s day calls them slurs, black face and minstrelsy, having superhuman qualities etc. and I’m only halfway through the video.
Edit: Also forgot why is her boyfriend named Jamal? that’s a weird, very surface level choice of a name for black person.
surprised one of the black girls wasnt called ebony 💀
absolutely correct. at some point things like this become malicious, but i'd be willing to bet the author (cant even remember her name) isn't just ignorant. I mean, Jamal calls her "my little bunny", referencing (i assume) SNOW BUNNIES?! LIKE WHITE WOMEN WHO DELIBERATELY FETISHISE BLACK MEN?! i think this author is less ignorant than her blog posts would imply about at least some aspects of this, and i think its disingenuous to paint her as 'just a stupid lady who didn't understand what she was writing about'
Foyt’s inability to acknowledge that she fucked up really bothered me. Not just bc it was unpleasant and cringy, but also because it helped set a tone for ppl were going to take this discussion on going forward.
Nothing constructive was done, books in this sort of line of thinking are still being written, and criticisms of these books are being attacked by ppl who refuse to acknowledge that even good, well meaning people can propagate harmful ideologies without intending to.
The fact she even tried to *defend* herself is fucked. Like, writers should never respond to their book reviews! Sure, respond to the controversy, but don't respond to the actual reviews being written/filmed, that just sets a precedence that reviewing books is not a safe action to do. Just look at the Matt Walsh bullshit
@@BooksandBuns she was trying to acknowledge the racism in the book, but she beyond fucked up. I’m not sure how much she contributed to the current culture of backlash against reviews tho, because she was only responding to that and not the reviews saying it was a shitty book, IIRC.
For my money, that can be laid at the foot of the current reactionary tendencies of hyper conservatism, and the fan fiction to YA writer pipeline bc my god, fic writers and conservatives these days have shrouded themselves in the same paper thin skin.
This assumes she has the mental capacity to understand.
@@65firered I know it’s mean, but I honestly think, regardless of her intentions, that she’s a stupid, racist woman. I don’t think she understands and she makes me very cross.
@@misskate3815 you mean white cishet women fic writers, right? Cause I know many trans men fic writers, myself included, who would never stoop this low. It's the privileged fic writers who have the same thin skin as conservatives, & often hold conservative values, & not the majority of fic writers who are actually marginalised themselves. For every white cishet woman author who's turned her YA romance fic into a novel, there are 20 marginalised writers who will never get the same sort of publicity as bullshit like After or 50 Shades
So as for the constant oxy use I do have an answer to that. I took that shit for ten years during cancer treatment (and it’s synthetically derived so they don’t need poppies) but after the initial adjustment it has little to no mind altering effect. You’d either have to take little breaks and periodically detox or take more and more to get even a little bit high. The author could not have picked a worse drug to make everyone high and happy long-term.
yeah, when I heard what he said about not being able to get anything done while high all the time, I knew that James has (most likely) never had the experience of being physically dependent on opioids (and in my case, addicted to abusing them), unlike me. In fact, some people can't get anything done *unless* they're constantly on oxycodone, or whatever opioid or substance they use. How unlucky he is not to have this knowledge (lol).
For real tho, after using opioids constantly for weeks or months, you simply feel normal when you take your ordinary/average dose of the opioid, and often are simply constantly taking it to stave off the absolutely terrible and uncomfortable feelings of anxiety, increased physical pain (aching spine, an inability to find any comfortable position, worsening of any existing pain), nausea, hopelessness, and the awful sensation of being torturously hot and cold at the same time (simultaneously shivering and sweating), among others. Oh wait, I guess it's actually a very good thing (and not unlucky) that James has (likely) not experienced this...
On the point of the author picking a bad drug, I kind of disagree. I don't think the reason was necessarily to keep everyone high and happy all the time. If it were even possible, wouldn't keeping everyone *actually* intoxicated to the point of euphoria on any drug interfere with their work performance in a similar way to what James was saying (any sedative/opioid/dissociative/cannabinoid at least, and stimulants have their own set of issues; they're not exactly ideal for keeping a population calm and complacent for one, and there's also issues with them accelerating the development of latent/dormant disorders which cause psychosis, especially if they're given to literally everyone in the population, which is an issue cannabinoids may unfortunately share).
I think that the *actual* reason is probably about controlling them, and making them dependent upon maintaining good standing with the authorities to avoid going through what might possibly be the most physically and mentally painful experience of their lives (opioid withdrawal), which they can constantly feel lurking around the corner when they start to have cravings and are warned to take some more. How can you easily rebel against a government that has that kind of control over you? Ultimately, I think the main point is that the people's work performance is not degraded, but they are physically dependent upon continued cooperation with the authorities, with a very physically painful/awful consequence for noncompliance, and the substance is one that is unlikely to spur people into action or cause unpredictable psychological reactions (whereas stimulants could possibly cause both of these effects, I think). Perhaps the government even gives out bonus doses of oxycodone to people as a reward for achievements/exemplary compliance occasionally, so that the model citizens can add it on top of their daily dose to feel a little bit of mu-opioid receptor mediated bliss for a little while.
(Another point against stimulants is that their withdrawal symptoms are less physically awful in my opinion, so I don't think the threat would be as scary if it was coke/amphetamine/meth.) Also, if they did just only give people a big dose of oxy/opioids every single evening to get high on, then the people would (after a while) start going into withdrawal when they wake up without any opioids to get them through the workday.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, and if you think I'm missing another substance that could work much better, but at the moment, I don't think it's the worst substance for the task.
(P.S. There are of course benzodiazepines, but the withdrawal from them is so hard on the brain that it can cause clusters of seizures that can be deadly if someone suddenly quits completely after using them for a long time, i.e. quitting cold turkey while dependent, so that seems like it would be a bit too dangerous, because I don't think they want people to start having seizures and dying just because the government has supply chain issues. That's not good for social stability. Also these drugs cause more behavioral disinhibition and potential aggression/sloppiness than opioids do, in my opinion. People high on heroin slump over in bed, perhaps watching something. People high on benzos, which act very similarly to alcohol, go out and drive cars and steal shit and sometimes fight people. Just my experience.)
Also, I dearly hope that you ended up beating the cancer fully, and it's amazing that you fought it for ten years, I can't imagine what you went through, it's humbling to hear. I hope you're in the best health possible, and are doing well. Have a good one!
Good you won over the cancer 🥰 And the , i cant imagine.
@@ByzantineDarkwraith long term opioid use can also cause seizures as well, and not just during withdrawal😬 now I could be mistaken, but I thought that he’d said the author laid out that the reasoning for the oxy was a happy/complacent working populace? At a certain point I think your best bet is to just give everyone a government mandated six pack of beer at the end of the workday😂
@@maddiedoesntkno do you have any sources for that? I know a lot of fellow addicts and haven't heard it (except for as a potential symptom in overdose due to lack of oxygen to parts of the brain being able to cause convulsions), it'd be interesting to read about. Either way, it's certainly much much less common of an effect of opioid withdrawal than it is for benzodiazepene/alcohol (and other sedatives which work on the GABA receptor) withdrawals.
(Oh, and there's also tramadol which is an opioid and can cause seizures surprisingly easily if you take a bit too high of a recreational dose, but that's not due to tramadol's opioid effects. tramadol actually acts on a bunch of sites in the brain, various receptors and transporters, and I believe it's tramadol's action as a rapid Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor which causes it to lower the seizure threshold)
I have theory about sudden existence of "thousands years old Aztec's building"- author did so little research that she assumed that they' ve always been there, just because they existed before first contact with Europeans.
Haven’t physically cringed like that in a while
I fucking hate the word "mate"
This feels like the authors OC interracial shapeshifter monster smut fic that she cut the sex scenes out of and published. In the YA section. Because God has left us.
I feel like I could write a better story about people trapped underground because of UV radiation. Heck, that’s basically what a mars colony would be.
You could probably do a thing where the resistance to UV radiation is a load of psuedo scientific crap. Just like real life justifications for racism
Take that as inspiration, genuinly!
Kipo and the age of wonderbeasts
I can't wait for Elon the Martian Lord to come out. It will be a depressing tale about idiots dying on Mars. All of the characters are jackasses so it will be more of a comedy.
@@danubeisreallypeculiarrive7944 or olen/nole ksum the martian lord XD
"It would be neat to see some intraracial discrimination based on skin tone" - is a hell of a sentence out of context
My favourite example of "racism/classism is actually stupid and meaningless" in fiction using non-humans is from an old sovjet movie "kin-dza-dza".
It's a satirical comedy where two everyday shmocks are teleported by accident to a faraway deser planet and need to figure out a way home. There it turns out there is two different "classes" of people and whichever happens to be the ruling class does whatever it likes to the "lower" class. And they all look the same. Like, they don't have any external differentiations. The *only* way of getting any differnece is by holding this remote in the direction of the person and if the light turns green they're one class, if it's red they're the other.
So, naturally, the audience inserts I mean main characters ask "what the fuck is that thing even about? This is stupid." and the aline characters (who look like humans btw. Don't expect anything high budget) are just like "what do you mean it doesn't make sense? That's how it is. Shut up and put on your nose-bell."
There is more to the movie as well. And every passing year I feel it's becoming more relevant.
So yeah. If you've read this far, stranger, look it up. The two part movie is on youtube (w english subtitles of course).
I always like it when I find good Soviet art
"I don't know anyone who calls their children son or daughter as a pet name" my dad calls me Daughter-Bot and I call him the All Father, but we're a family of nerds, and I'm 33 years old 😅
I love your longform video essays about trash books. Keep up the good work!
Ah science. You know what also blocks solar radiation? Clouds. Glass windows. Air layers. You really don't need to live underground to protect yourself... or if you do, at that point the planet has bigger problems.
one actually really interesting thing is that dogs actually can be, and often are racist! if you don't socialize them with different races they can turn racist. or if someone does something bad to them, the dog can associate that colour skin with the trauma. my mums dogs as a kid in south africa would always growl and bark at black people. at the time, she thought they just "knew they were bad".
Oh boy,she accidently created a real interested thing
My dog was socialized well yet had two problem groups of people black men and Hispanic men except one. Ironic given his favorite people where the black women from the Jehovah's witnesses any men they brought with them had to stay in the car. Best compromise was if you're in his problem groups were to give him a treat enter and let him have his space. We tried everything
My dog would consistently bark at Asian ladies. Only from far away. She was a corgi so often people would come and greet her closer up and she would have no problem. I also don’t think her eyesight was great since it was only if they were across the street.
There's a movie from the 80s about this called White Dog.
@bingchungusI feel like the cops probably aren't bothered by that tho
Come for the skewering of a YA novel series infamous for its racial insensitivity, stay for the revelation that one of the most notorious dictators in recent history wrote a romance novel. Good deal if you ask me.
The state-mandated use of oxy, the racial castes, and the native tribe outside their authoritarian society makes me feel like the author read Brave New World and completely misinterpreted it
literally this. When I heard him describe the oxy use I was like "is this supposed to be this book's equivalent to soma?"
I haven't finished the video yet but I can't help but feel much less charitable to the author of this book. Between that potential 14 words reference, and the fact that the "adopting Emily Dickinson as an ancestor" thing reminds me a lot of the way in which white supremacists claim a connection to unrelated "great white people" to strengthen their narrative of the white race.
edit: The author of this series would probably keel over of she learned that a lot of people considered Latine are also black
She’d keel over if she learned what ethnicity was at all. Nobody tell her that race is just a social construct or she might just die
if the author said she's 'colour blind' she is definitely not anti-racist
You just know she's said "I don't care if you're black, white, purple, or polka-dotted!" unironically.
she's that person who thinks they're progressive and "see everyone the same" but really just doesn't want to deal with their biases and recognise the ways they do perpetuate racism. like with this book
It isn't racist . to be color blind
being color blind and not seing race is by defenition not being racist @@woobiefuntime
@dvirnevo6669 how?
"People being referred as stones and gems".
Hey, look, it's just Steven Universe, except it's against minorities.
There is land of the lustrous but there too, its living gems.
Yeah cause of course the underclass would be named after precious stones while the ruling one would be named after coal.
SU and HnK could never smh
@@rururiemn1941 ugh fr
@@marocat4749 SU but better
“She has 2 functioning brain cells and they’re fighting for 3rd place” is my new favorite insult
I remember a similar plot line to this one. It was in the Turner Diaries. The Neo-Nazi book that literally coined the term 'Day of Ropes'.
God help us.
That is written by an actual white suprematist,which is wild she is just ignorant.
I have no doubt the author drew inspiration from that book
It's very reminiscent of a Birth of a Nation and the Turner Diaries and it's so apparent that this HAD to be a dogwhistle. There's no way a well-intentioned person wrote a "black people mass assault white women" erotica where the black characters are named coal and cotton, and they all rule the world simply because they're "beastly and savage". Like legitimately insane, I would at least expect that they would cover the stereotypes up with a "fictional race" like Stephanie Meyers and the wolves/shapeshifters "just happening to be indigenous".
And it's further proof that writers need to be historically aware of harmful stereotypes before they put things on paper that they cannot erase. Far too many writers will say racist and offensive things about us and file it under "well it's B-grade erotica!". I have read several stories that play into black stereotypes for "fetish fuel" and then try and cover it up with "well it's fiction and not at all reminiscent of my true feelings" but at some point there's a direct throughline between racist violence and media either villanizing or oversexualizing us. People have to know these things to avoid them or else it spreads like wildfire and they take it as fact. (See: white fans of asian media calling all asian people "real life anime characters" or people randomly calling Koreans "Kpop". White people consistently bringing up BBC even when unprompted and erring on sexual harassment, etc.) Like the defense that this is a "spicy romance" is not at all a fair defense because Birth of a Nation was a horror movie. The Turner Diaries is a dystopic romance by definition. It is literally in the same genre of one of the most racist fiction novels to date, and nearly holds up next to it.
@@sydney2942 what’s birth of a nation about ?
Nvm just googled it
@@exaggeratedswaggerofablackteen As an American, I formally apologize.
"I can't be racist, people made fun of my hair." The Tommy Dreamer defense.
edit: Hey ECW fans. There's dozens of us.
EC DUBYA
As someone has never heard of this book before, I think I'm glad that I hadn't lol
EDIT: why dont they all just mass cultivate the magic healing herb and live above ground? Is it ever explained? Seems like it would be an easier and less weird option than turning into furries? Someone who has read the book, I need answers
You could have the father being a twistvillain and wanting furry supremacy for reasons and thats why?! It would not exploring the rest of the world, but she being indoctrinated in a furry supremany cult by her dad and her conflict could explain, maybe the dad kept that from the cave?!
Sounds a way more interesting set up.
That with the background of opression could be , its complicated, her dads bad, the cave is. She shares the plant with the cave people against the opressive authorities control, and gets other furry people there, she steals and destroys his research that creates furres to have hippie furry group?!
Turning into furries is actually the ideal solution to any problem.
I guess no one from the underground society ever found out about the plant because they never went to the surface level long enough to notice?
Even though it seems like a very prolific native plant...and there are def some people that do go to the surface...maybe the ruling class just didn't want the "pearls" to be able to be on the surface without issue through the help of the plants? Otherwise, the distinction between races/classes would become completely unnecessary, so the government suppressed knowledge/research of the plants in an attempt to stay in power. That's really the only explanation I can think of.
Honestly, I wish the politics of the plants was discussed more. Would have been way more interesting than the constant fetishization of the indigenous peoples on the surface. Could have been a whole plot where the "coals," "pearls," and even the "cottons" come together after learning about this cure that the government/rulers hid from them just so they could live in comfort while everyone else struggles, is expected to drop their life goals to reproduce once, and is constantly drugged with oxys so they don't notice/question their poor conditions.
Yah there's a lot of plot holes
Your sacrifice was unnessecary, but welcomed. Thank you for your pain and subsequent Entertainment for us.
It's a shame a video about such a violently terrible book is also the source of an absolutely fantastic insult... "This b*tch has 2 functioning braincells and they're both fighting for third place" incredible
Why is she trying to Save the Pearls when its actually her marbles that she's lost?
As I watch this I became increasingly confused on why cat people hybrids and Aztec gods overtook this story about a tone deaf ya dystopian story about inverted racism????
I will never not find the name of this book unintentionally being "Save the whites" funny as hell
The "18 year old" cutoff feels like a subtle dig at the notion/perception that women are unmarriable after 25.
No it's just age of consent laws
I doubt the author would have put that much thought into it
The subject of dogs being colorblind is actually false; they cannot perceive the level of color in the spectrum as ours can, but they still perceive colors nonetheless. And it's an awful thing, but some dogs have historically indeed been trained to differentiate the skin color of humans and act differently toward races with a specific color of skin, typically with hostility, and typically trained by white people to be used specifically against black people. A good example would be that it has, and in some cases still happens, in the southern United States. I've seen rural establishments that have signs outside that say that people need to beware of wearing dark-colored clothing or hoods, or exposing their skin if they possess dark skin color, because the owner's dog had been trained to attack those of that description on sight. It's horrific.
In what world is being a pearl ever going to carry a negative connotation? Its so ingrained in our language as a word for a precious thing that you wouldn't be able to flip that and then use it to describe what had been the dominant class for centuries.
Honestly, the difference between Foyt's Aztec religion and real-life Aztec religion could have been fairly easily explained by just saying that some Spaniards sided with these fleeing Aztecs and integrated with them, teaching them things like how to make firearms and metal weapons and armor and how to ride horses and all that, and over the course of generations, these Spaniards' Christianity was syncretized with the Aztec's religion. We see examples of a similar thing happening in real life with the veneration of the Catholic folk saint Santa Muerte ("Holy Death", depicted as a female Grim Reaper), which stems from the belief in and worship of indigenous death deities. However, in this case, the reverse would be true, with Aztec belief and theology setting the precedent while Christian theology and mythology are simply made a part of it (though some changes could be bigger than others). There's probably potential in how the apparently real Aztec gods would work with or around this modified theology, but I'm too tired to go into it.
(On the matter of these hypothetical Spanish defectors, it could lead to a more technologically-advanced Aztec group who speak a fusion of Nahuatl and Spanish, on top of maybe even having some Aztec-aesthetic clockpunk machinery or something. Sounds fun.)
Then again, I'm no expert on any of what I just spouted off, these are just ideas I came up with off the top of my head while eating dinner, so take everything I just said with a metric ton of salt.
Would read a book set in that world
@@great-wall-of-nowhere9377 yeah, sound like an interesting setting to explore
Writing about that would’ve actually been interesting, and we all know good writing is beyond Foyt’s capabilities.
That’s what happened in Cuba with santeria
protip: you can replace english letters with their cyrillic equivalents and it`s just as hard for a machine to read it as if you replaced those letters with non-text symbols, but way easier for a human to read
Ī bəţ ŕåňďøm đıãčříťïçš, §ým🅱️0Ł$, àńď šůçh čøůľď w⁰ŕķ āş wėłľ. +, ppľ c*n fîll in __s vįâ ķàhňťe×ț, s* ťjăť nnâý hěļp.
I bet random diacritics, symbols, and such could work as well. Plus, people can fill in blanks via context, so that may help.
α a huh your right
Реаллй? И Дон’т кноу абоут тхат.
44:00 my personal favorite real world version of this would be that japanese people in South Africa were considered white and other east asian people were considered black basically because the SA government wanted Japanese goods.
Edit: and also they were to lazy to keep coming up with racial categories
The real white people in South Africa are almost all mixed as well. They also constantly re-classified some people from one category into another
I'm sorry, is the writer of this book straight-up saying a society ruled by black people would be high on drugs all the time? Did I hear that right?
My question is how does the ruling class have a racial slur? There’s a reason we don’t really have effective racial slurs for white people, rich people, straight people, cis people, etc. That’s just not really how slurs work
Yeah it would be like if calling a white person a cracker was actually taken as a slur
All groups and all demographics have slurs against them. If one race can have a slur against it, then all races can. If one income level can have a slur, then all of them can. Slurs don't stop being slurs just because you like to say them or because you personally don't find them as offensive as other slurs.
@@Eacles Not really rich people don't have slurs they have like backhanded insults but those aren't slurs
@@ComradeMaryFromMars Slurs don't stop being slurs just because you don't think they're as bad as other slurs. Unless your definition of slur can only apply to race or some other category, one income level not having a slur means none of them can.
@@Eaclesname one?
Omfg. I'm sorry. But when you were reading the summary, the second you said her secret lover's name was Jamal i fucking lost it. Like not to be that guy, but i feel like that's the most default stereotypical name a white person would make for a black person lmao.
It is my dude. Like it's in the top 5 of stereotypical names for a black person. It almost as bad as Tyrone. I almost surprised that she didn't use that name. (I am a black girl/woman btw)
And soon as she used Jamal, I knew he was a bad guy because I felt it in my bones.
That or Jerome.
I physically cringed on 10 different levels. Honestly this book is so bizarre. Like it’s a racist YA dystopian with Aztec gods and furry sex
This book is absolutely fucking batshit, but I have to admit the nursery rhyme makes sense. Nursery rhymes are fucking dark.
"It's raining, it's pouring," "Doctor Foster," "Mary Mary," "Jack and Jill," even "Humpty Dumpty." They're all about people dying horrible deaths or having miscarriages. Children are vicious fuckers, man. I wouldn't put that shit past them.
Also “Rockabye Baby”. Why is that the stereotypical bedtime song??? 😱
@@ReturnToSenderz So bleak. I remember being the only kid in nursery who was mortified by it. I got in pretty big trouble when I made the other kids cry by explaining that the baby in the song fucking dies.
“Pick A Tiger By The Toe” had an incredibly common racist version in the 1800s called “Pick a N*gger By The Toe.”
You know, the idea of people who belong to an oppressed group being mandated to wear a literal mask to physically blend in with the group in authority as a metaphor for the way oppressed groups have been either legally required or socially pressured to fit in with their oppressors' society throughout history COULD have been interesting - in a way better book than this
*A Face Like Glass* by Frances Hardinge kind of does this!
A former friend of mine who was white, blond-haired, blue-eyed, the whole she-bang, once posed to me almost this exact idea two years ago. I don't know if she realised the implications of it either, especially considering I'm half middle eastern, but safe to say that even though I'd never heard of this book before I was not surprised someone had made a "poor white people, being eradicated by the nasty black people" YA dystopia novel before.
a former friend who I thought was genuinely joking when she said something racist pitched a similar idea, and it was so mind-blowningly stupid
I’m also half middle-eastern and that’s when I tapped out of the friendship because she wasn’t joking at all
In aztec cosmology, the world ended 4 times because of petty fights amongst gods.
Also, if there is a god you don't want to exists it's Huitzilopochtli. He demands lots and lots of blood.
They'll be better of with Quetzalcoatl but with someone that thinks Ecuador is next to México, I don't expect too much.
To be fair every single of these fellas likes blood. Lots of blood, Quetzalcoatl might have been more tame, but it could also be a part of colonizers trying to tie him to Jesus, sadly our knowledge of Nahua religious practices is filtered through christians who recorded most of what we know
Grandson: But grandpa I want hunger games 😢
Grandpa: We have hunger games at home sonny👴
A world where people are forced to have children could be an interesting concept. You could have an asexual or gay protagonist and the story could be a metaphor for societal expectations being forced on people. It could be a position on abortion.
I don't know if you said this, but didn't you say that people are only allowed to have one child in this world? Then why also force them to have children? To keep the generation cycle going very fast? That would sort of explain the 18 year rule, but not why they are forced to have kids
The Handmaid's Tale is what you're thinking of
@@movelea don't know. I haven't gotten to that one yet
@@eliasbischoff176 i think you'll like it
@@movelea thanks. It's on my TBR already
They briefly explored this concept in season 2 of Wayward Pines.
The fact that this story could have instead been about the species of oysters that create pearls the mineral going extinct and the leads having to save them with that name but NO WE HAD TO GET RACISM THE BOOK
alright i am much aware that commenting before watching the whole video is a fools errand but the albinos are called WHAT NOW???
Yes, I've been waiting for a long review like this one. Dude your reviews are the perfect background videos for when I'm farming exp points in rpgs or repeating hunts in monster hunter.
I love how you broke down how unreliable and unscientific our ideas about racial groups are at around the 45 minute mark. So many people don't seem to understand this concept and I have tried to explain it to people before but I have difficulty finding the right words. The way you worded it really makes sense.
One thing I feel should be called out is Grouping Latinos as a race.
Being Latino is an ethnicity. Latinos are Black, white brown, and and of all colors.
I believe is the same with Asians
Latino isn't an ethnicity really. It's just a classifier for people from Latinate-speaking countries. There are still races and ethnicities within those countries. Saying that it is one would be like saying everyone from the US and Canada constitute a single race.
@@randomstranger9306 true
@@randomstranger9306 li😃🤷♀️🦸🦸🦸🦸🦸🦸🙂🙂
Not in the same way. Asian covers the continent, so indians and Chinese people are both Asian. But it's not used in the same way that Latino is, where a white person is Latino too.
You say Hunger Games, but the only book series that came to my mind while listening to this is Twilight.
I think Foyt has a general disposition towards other races, which is complicated by her either having Autassassinophilia or some other philia that draws her to those whom she looks down upon.
Just replace blac- I mean *coals* with vampires/werewolves and it's spookily close when you remember how creepy Meyer was.
My favorite part of James Tullos videos is when he says "Its Tullin' time" and tulls out!
And he keeps going, too! So inspiring.
there might be a thousand other bad books out there, but you thrashing this particular one for two hours and a half has instantly made my day brighter, kudos 💕
"if she doesn't find a mate before her 18th birthday" im uncomfortable
my God. Everytime. EVERYTIEM i think "dear god that's a lot of bad worldbuilding its on this whole book" and then you exclaim how WE'RE NOT EVEN PAST THE FIRST 20 PAGES
Sarah Z mentioned it in a video a while back and it made me search it up, never has a Wikipedia plot description left me this completely shocked
Do you happen to know which video it was? I don't remember her mentioning it but maybe it just was in a video I forgot to watch. Thanks in advance c:
@@Flareontoast I believe it was "The Rise and Fall of Teen Dystopias"
Why was I half expecting an entire paragraph dedicated to Fried chicken at some point.
Fried chicken is so racist that it should be banned.
Wait, when did fried chicken become racist? Who is inventing new racisms?
@@Mecharnie_Dobbs look up Fried Chicken and Watermelon. It’s kinda been racist for a while.
@@Mecharnie_Dobbs Fried chicken is not itself inherently racist. However, racists made eating cheap food like fried chicken and watermelon a racist stereotype _literally generations ago._
@@Mecharnie_Dobbs it’s been a racist stereotype for a while that black people eat watermelons and fried chicken in order to demean them
the fact that this takes place on earth, in a supposed future, rather than an alt history earth or just a different world entirely, kinda makes it seem like a portent of "what would happen if black people were given power"